The dawn of their departure from the Sleeping Basilisk Inn was not marked by fanfares or tearful farewells, but by the rhythmic, reassuring sound of a rusty spoon being polished with maniacal fury.
Mordecai had left Larry behind, not as a punishment, but as a long-term investment. The small skeleton, now equipped with the [Tireless Worker] passive skill, a utility belt, and worker gloves, was tackling the pile of cutlery with the same intensity a Paladin would reserve for an ancient dragon.
He was trying to do the best for his master, of course. 👍
For Mordecai, that sound—scrik-scrik, scrik-scrik—was music. It was the sound of efficiency. It was proof that, with the right managerial framework, even the most useless being could become a productive asset.
The journey toward Fort Blackstone, however, tested his patience severely. Not because of the physical distance, which his new stats handled without issue, but because of the continuous assault on his intelligence caused by this world's terrible writing.
The Blighted Moors were an expanse of grey fog and jagged rocks, a place that should have inspired terror. Instead, it only inspired boredom. And, worse yet, it hosted the most annoying element of any RPG: "Adventurers."
But not normal adventurers. They were the exact copy you see in every single anime written for the only purpose of giving to (a lot of) people what they want: generic fast food stories.
As they walked along a muddy path, they encountered a classic party: a warrior in shining (and impractical) armor, a mage in robes far too loose for combat, and a cleric who seemed more concerned with not dirtying her shoes than with healing. They were fighting a [Great Mud Boar], a creature with the AI of a broken toaster.
Mordecai stopped, observing the scene with the critical eye of a workplace safety inspector witnessing a flagrant violation.
"Observe, Pyroetta," he said, pointing to the mage who had started floating in mid-air, surrounded by blue light particles. "Do you see what he is doing?"
"He is... charging a powerful spell?" Pyra asked, fascinated by the lights.
"No. He is wasting time," Mordecai replied dryly. "The boar is just standing there. It is literally waiting. Look at the monster: it growls on a loop, moving its head left and right in a predictable three-second pattern. Why doesn't it attack? Because the world's 'script' says it has to give the protagonist time to finish his monologue about friendship and casting his spell."
The mage, unaware he was being judged, inhaled deeply and screamed: "OH SPIRITS OF THE WIND THAT BLOW IN THE VALLEYS OF ETERNITY, HEAR MY VOICE AND BECOME THE BLADE THAT TEARS THE SKY! [GALESTORM OF THE DIVINE DRAGON]!"
Ten full seconds passed. Ten seconds in which, in a real fight, the mage would have been disemboweled three times. Finally, a gust of colorful wind hit the boar, rolling it back two meters. Minimal damage. Maximum particle effects.
"Pathetic," Mordecai muttered, resuming his walk as the warrior began screaming the name of his sword move. "When you see fights like this, Pyra, it isn't epic. It is lazy writing. The author didn't know how to write an intelligent strategy, so they filled the scene with lights and screaming to distract the reader from the fact that the plot is full of holes. It is like covering a cracked wall with expensive wallpaper."
"So... I shouldn't scream the name of my attacks?" she asked, confused. In her head, screaming [CRIMSON EXPLOSION OF THE CRIMSON PURGATORY!] felt like the right thing to do.
"Only if you want the enemy to know exactly what you are about to do and prepare a countermeasure," he replied. "Silence is tactical. Efficiency is lethal."
At that exact moment, the fog parted, and a [Corrupted Moor Hound] lunged at them without warning. No screaming, no lights. Just fangs and hunger.
Pyra moved to summon a flame, but Mordecai was already in motion. He didn't draw a weapon. He simply took a single, thirty-centimeter sidestep to the left.
The hound, driven by its own immense speed, missed the target. Mordecai simply extended a leg, hooking the beast's rear paw. Physics did the rest. Inertia transformed the monster's leap into a ruinous face-first tumble, straight into a jagged spike of black rock jutting from the ground. CRUNCH. The sound of the skull snapping was dry, brutal, and devoid of any musical accompaniment.
"See?" Mordecai said, brushing a non-existent speck of dust from his shoulder. Mana cost: zero. Execution time: 0.4 seconds. Gravity is a free and constantly available resource. Exploit it."
Pyra nodded, but her eyes weren't focused on the physics lesson. Her right hand had slipped inside her armor, pressing against the inner pocket where she kept the Japanese "secret message." 'He is so... pragmatic,' she thought, blushing. 'The way he killed that beast... It's as if he told death itself to be efficient. And that letter... those mysterious words... it must be a promise that our love will be as solid as that rock.'
Then, a familiar screen appeared in front of Mordecai.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION] [TARGET ELIMINATED: CORRUPTED MOOR HOUND] [REWARD: +1,000 EXP]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: DARK EDGY ABSORB]
[EFFECT: You can now permanently acquire the skills of the enemies you eliminate. (Subject to mental storage capacity).]
Mordecai stared at the notification with the same expression an auditor gives a tax return that actually makes sense for once. There was no thrill of power, only a cold, technical approval.
'Mh. Finally, a mechanic that doesn't waste resources,' Mordecai murmured, adjusting his collar. He watched as the hound's essence was pulled into his own shadow like data being uploaded to a server.
'Instead of letting the target's potential vanish into the administrative void of death, the system reallocates the assets to my inventory. It's a forced liquidation of intellectual property...' He gave a sharp, satisfied nod. 'I'm basically inheriting its assets as a legal succession. No paperwork, no inheritance tax. Efficient.'
Of course, Pyra didn't see the hound's essence being pulled into Mordecai. She was too busy thinking about her future with 4 children and an edgy husband.
FEEDBACK FROM THE HIGHER REALMS
MinMaxNecro ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: "DARK ABSORB! The ultimate power-leveling skill, and Mordecai treats it like he's filling out a 730 tax form for the afterlife. I love how he manages to make necromancy sound like a boring accounting job while being absolutely broken."
XxShadowSlayerxX ⭐⭐⭐: "Legal succession? Bro, you just stole a dog's soul! Although I have to admit, calling a murder-loot cycle 'forced liquidation of intellectual property' is a level of savage I didn't expect."
System_Whisperer: "98% compatibility detected between the user's personality and the [DARK ABSORB] skill. Mordecai is the only user in the history of the system who didn't ask for a damage buff, but rather a reduction in asset-transfer latency. Note: Efficiency is becoming his primary offensive stat."
LegalWaifuFan ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: "I can't wait for him to kill a high-ranking official. Imagine him 'inheriting' a mayor's zoning permits. That's the real dark magic right there."
After another hour of walking, during which Mordecai critiqued the architecture of bridges ("Who builds a rope bridge over a lava river without OSHA-compliant handrails?") and the local flora ("These poisonous plants have no ecological utility; they are just here to be annoying"), they arrived at their destination.
Fort Blackstone.
It was a squat, brutal monument to pessimism. No elegant spires, no stained glass. Just blocks of black stone, grey moss, and a sense of oppression that seeped into the bones.
It was perfect. Mordecai smiled. It was exactly what he had bought from Geoffrey: a low-cost property with "character."
However, as they approached the rusted gate, a sharp sound rang in his mind.
<
'An anomaly?' Mordecai frowned, stopping before the gate. 'You mean a squatter? In my fort?'
<
Our beloved fake necromancer didn't even notice the fact that Hugo spoke like a normal human from his world. He had stopped asking questions to the system.
Mordecai pushed the gate. It didn't creak like in a horror movie; it opened with a heavy, oily, mechanical sound, and they then stepped into the inner courtyard.
Immediately, the atmosphere changed. The moor fog vanished, replaced by stagnant, stale air that smelled of old ink and sealing wax. The sky above the courtyard wasn't grey, but the color of yellowed parchment.
Pyroetta felt a wave of fear and used that excuse to cling to Mordecai.
'Pushing her away would lead to a boring conversation and a waste of time. I have to let her do.'
And then, the wind started. It wasn't air. It was paper. Thousands of sheets of spectral paper began to swirl around them like a bureaucratic blizzard. Subpoenas, injunctions, fines, notices of default. They flew aggressively, slicing the air with the hiss of paper cuts.
"NOTICE OF UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY," a voice boomed. It wasn't a monster's roar. It was worse. It was the amplified voice of a judge who had just lost their patience. "VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 7, SECTION 3 OF THE UN-LIFE CODE: AGGRAVATED TRESPASSING AND FAILURE TO PRESENT FORM B-65 FOR GUEST ENTRY."
From the center of the paper whirlwind, the mist condensed and took form. She descended slowly, floating four inches off the ground, not by magic, but by sheer legal superiority.
'Is that a...?' He thought, before activating [REVEAL MAGIC]
[Cassandra Lex, Level (??? ERROR)]
Mordecai tried to analyze her, but in vain.
The system wasn't showing anything. All of her stats were replaced by the word "Error".
If Mordecai expected a screaming ghost in chains, he was disappointed (or pleasantly surprised).
The figure before them was a Banshee, yes, but dressed as if she were heading to a board meeting in Hell.
She didn't look like a standard wailing banshee draped in tattered rags. Cassandra Lex looked like she had stepped out of a high-budget corporate nightmare.
She wore a high-collared black dress so austere and crease-free it made a military uniform look like sloppy pajamas. Her hair was a river of ink-black, interrupted by streaks of spectral white that framed her face like the margins of a well-drafted contract. But it was the eyes that stopped your heart: a vibrant, acidic green, glowing behind thin-rimmed glasses with the cold finality of an 'Imminent Execution' stamp. She drifted lazily above the floor, surrounded by a gravitational storm of fluttering pages, clauses, and silver chains that shrieked like the hinges of an underworld courtroom. Moreover, she wore... glasses.
She was terrifyingly beautiful, cold, and untouchable. And, as Mordecai noted with pure detached analysis, her physical proportions were... statistically significant.
'She literally looks exactly like Hina from that yandere novel. What the f*ck?!'
Pyroetta noticed those big proportions too, and her brain short-circuited. Admiration for Mordecai's efficiency vanished, instantly replaced by a VERY dangerous [JEALOUSY_OVERDRIVE.exe].
She looked at Cassandra's perfect face, then at her ample chest threatening to pop the spectral buttons of her jacket, and then she moved her gaze to Mordecai, who was watching her (he was analyzing the threat level, but Pyroetta only saw interest).
"Who does this... office cow think she is?!" Pyra hissed, her hands igniting with crimson flames. "Does she think she can seduce my Kaitoyama with those... unnecessary protrusions?! How dare she appear before him dressed so provocatively?!"
"Pyroetta, stop. She is a high-level legal entity, do not attack without—" Mordecai began, raising a hand.
It was too late. Jealousy had bypassed logic. "BURN, YOU BUREAUCRATIC WITCH BITCH!" Pyra screamed, launching herself forward. A sphere of concentrated fire, fueled by the fury of a princess in love (and delusional), rocketed toward the spectral lawyer.
Cassandra didn't move. She didn't dodge. She didn't even blink. She simply adjusted her glasses on her nose with a pale finger.
"OBJECTION," she stated. Her voice was calm, freezing, and absolute. She raised her left hand, palm open. Assault on a Public Official in the exercise of their duties. Statute 404: Physical Violence Denied. Damage Reflection Clause activated."
The air before Cassandra rippled like water. Pyra's fireball stopped in mid-air, shuddered, and then changed color. From red, it turned electric blue—the color of administrative sanctions. With a sound like a stamp hitting a desk, the fireball reversed course. It returned at double speed.
"Gah?!" was the only sound Pyra managed to make. The impact lifted her off the ground. It wasn't fire-burning skin; it was pure conceptual blunt force. "Additional Charge," Cassandra continued as Pyra flew backward. "Public Indecency (loud shouting). Endangerment of structural stability. Attempted murder in the first degree."
Cassandra made a sharp downward gesture, as if closing a case file. Gravity around Pyra increased tenfold.
SLAM.
The princess was flattened against the courtyard wall, pinned by chains of blue light that appeared from nowhere. Her eyes rolled back. She fainted instantly, overcome not by physical pain, but by the crushing weight of legal guilt.
Mordecai looked at his unconscious companion, then mentally checked her health bar. "Hmm. Still alive. She is essential to the plot for future fan-service scenes, so she has fatality immunity," he muttered to himself. "Terrible resource management, though."
He turned to Cassandra, who was now floating toward him, towering with an aura of intimidation that would make an ogre weep.
"Now," Mordecai said, trying to maintain his cool. "Let's talk about my property rights. I have a deed of sale."
"Inadmissible," Cassandra interrupted. She summoned a judge's gavel made of polished human bone. "You possess a piece of paper from 'CasaTomba Realty.' But I have resided here for three hundred years," she explained, with a thin, cruel smile. "Under the Netherworld Adverse Possession Act (Specter Section), the previous owner's negligence transferred management rights to me. You are a squatter. And the penalty for squatting..." She raised the gavel. The weapon's shadow stretched to cover the entire courtyard. "...is Executive Eviction via Soul Shredding."
[SYSTEM ALERT: BOSS BATTLE INITIATED - CASSANDRA LEX, THE IRON BANSHEE.] [WARNING: LOGIC ALONE CANNOT DEFEAT BUREAUCRACY. YOU NEED AUTHORITY.]
[ENEMY SKILL DETECTED: 'RED TAPE STRANGLEHOLD' - PARALYZES TARGETS WITH LOW SOCIAL STANDING.]
Mordecai tried to move, but felt locked in place. His knees shook. It wasn't fear. It was physical pressure. Cassandra was using the Rules of the place against him.
"I am a Level 1 Electrician," Mordecai growled, forced onto one knee under the weight of Cassandra's aura. "I have no jurisdiction in this domain..."
"Exactly," Cassandra said, looking down at him with professional disdain. "You are a civilian. A plebeian. A statistical error. Pleading guilty now will save us precious time for the filing of your corpse."
The gavel began to descend. Slow. Inexorable. Mordecai felt the weight of a thousand unpaid fines, a thousand lines at the post office, a thousand wrongly filled forms crushing his shoulders. He was about to be defeated by the thing he loved most: Bureaucracy. But it was the bureaucracy used incorrectly. It was tyrannical bureaucracy, not efficient bureaucracy. And that made him angry.
"I hate..." Mordecai hissed, hair covering his eyes. "...bad management."
"Final Judgment," Cassandra intoned. "Erasure."
"OBJECTION!" Mordecai whispered. He didn't scream. He didn't use magic. He simply stopped pretending. "You cite the Netherworld Act," he said, and his voice changed. The raspy, tired tone of the electrician vanished, replaced by a deep, ancient resonance, like the sound of a crypt door opening after millennia. "But you forget the Supremacy Clause."
With a thought, he deactivated the skill that had protected (and limited) him until now. [DEACTIVATING SKILL: TOTALLY HIDE STATUS...] [REVEALING TRUE IDENTITY...] [BE CAREFUL ABOUT YOUR EDGYNESS.]
The air in the courtyard didn't get cold. It died. The wind stopped abruptly, and the gavel had completely disappeared. The swirling papers fell to the ground, inert, as if afraid to make noise. Mordecai's shadow expanded, swallowing the courtyard, dark and dense as oil.
His worn work clothes transformed, weaving themselves from darkness and pure mana, becoming ceremonial black robes with silver embroidery pulsating with administrative power. His skin turned pale as royal tomb marble. Mordecai stood up. The pressure of Cassandra's spell shattered against him like cheap glass.
He raised his head and opened his eyes. Left eye, icy blue. Right eye, electric violet, blazing, with a slit pupil that seemed to look not at the woman, but at the source code of her existence.
He was no longer Kaitoyama. He was not an electrician. He was the Architect.
Mordecai Von Ravenloft. The True Administrator.
Cassandra Lex's eyes went wide. "No... this can't be real... it can't..." she muttered, scared... or aroused. "You... you are...! Nghhh!"
The bone gavel slipped from her hands and dissolved into dust before hitting the ground. Her aura of authority collapsed, replaced by reverent terror.
"I am not a squatter, Cassandra," Mordecai said, his voice amplified by the authority of the System itself. He took a step forward, and the world seemed to tremble. "I am the Landlord. And you... are late on rent."
Across the courtyard, Pyra's eyes snapped open. Her blurred vision showed her the scene. She didn't see the tired electrician she loved to tease. She didn't see the man who had written her an incomprehensible (love) message. She saw the King of Death in his full glory, submitting a Banshee with nothing more than sheer presence.
Something in Pyra's brain clicked. A warmth—not of arousal, but of ancient memory—ran through her temples. Images of a throne of smoldering bones and a man dressed in shadow overlapped reality for a brief instant, before dissolving into the dreadful clarity of her new (ancient) eyes.
The final lock on her memories, already weakened by the contract and the letter, snapped permanently.
[SYSTEM: COMPANION 'PYRA' - CRITICAL FIRMWARE UPDATE DETECTED.]
[ERROR: TSUNDERE_OS V1.2 NO LONGER COMPATIBLE WITH HARDWARE.]
[INITIALIZING FACTORY RESET...]
[RESTORING: FLAME_WITCH_ADMINISTRATOR_PROTOCOLS (LEGACY VERSION).]
As Mordecai towered over the lawyer to continue his battle, Pyra managed to stand up. But she no longer swayed. The confusion in her eyes vanished, replaced by an ancient and terrible clarity. "What...? My Lord... Is that you...?" she whispered, and her voice was no longer that of a bratty girl. It was the voice of someone who had burned kingdoms for him.
The legal battle was over. The corporate audit had just begun.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION, FEEDBACK FROM THE HIGHER REALMS]
MinMaxNecro ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: "Gravity management as a zero-cost resource is the reason I follow this novel. Mordecai is literally 'optimizing' death. And that final reveal? 102 levels of pure administrative power."
LegalWaifuFan ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐: "CASSANDRA LEX! A Banshee who uses the civil code to stun enemies is everything I didn't know I needed. I want her as a permanent partner in the legal team of Ravenloft Holdings."
XxShadowSlayerxX ⭐⭐⭐: "Okay, I admit it—the scene where Pyra gets flown away for 'Public Indecency' made me laugh. But now I want to see Mordecai use [DARK ABSORB] on Cassandra's legal skills. Imagine a Necromancer who forecloses your soul with an official stamp."
System_Whisperer: "The transition from 'Kaitoyama the Electrician' to 'Mordecai the Architect' has been processed with 99.8% efficiency. Pyra's evolution into 'Flame Witch Administrator' guarantees a 70% reduction in unnecessary dialogue. Excellent."