Chapter 56: A New Man

And so, the redeemed Kaitoyama had finally made his return to Oakhaven.

He was escorted to a local inn with his party for further 'investigation' by some members of the Church.

They had asked him what it felt like to touch the Saintess and then to be enveloped in Nick's grace, and his only answer to every question was "I feel like I'm a new man," while his party kept mumbling random things about being annoyed.

Example: "So, Kaitoyama... What did you feel when your hand touched t-t-t-the holy Lucy?" one of the priests asked.

"I feel like I'm a new man." He said, with a fake sparkle in his eyes.

After a while, the sun moved to the south, indicating that it was noon, and Mordecai and his party decided that it was time to move to the [Silver Dragon's Golden Dawn].

They kept walking through the busy and capitalistic streets of Oakhaven, under the watchful eyes of people who looked at him with a mix of confusion, disgust, and 'admiration'.

Nya, Valeria, and Seraphina occasionally moved from stand to stand, searching for any kind of new food.

Mordecai, on the other hand, couldn't help the feeling of disgust after seeing that the situation he had seen at the beginning of his adventure hadn't changed, not even a bit.

Too many people were still buying Lucy's Holy bath water and Nick's action figures, with a long line of people probably waiting from the night before.

'Certain things won't change. No matter the world or the universe. People still manage to find a way to negatively surprise me.' He silently sighed.

After a while, he had finally arrived at the Guild with his party.

As they entered, he could feel the same clichèd air he had breathed at the beginning. The strangest thing was that nobody had noticed them. Mordecai expected some 'bad' glances towards him.

Instead, all he saw was a 'familiar' scene.

The guy in a green tracksuit was still insulting one of his comrades, while another one was crying over a glass of wine, talking about how useless their party was.

There was no trace of the white-haired edgelord with an eyepatch and a prosthetic arm. Instead, there was the blonde mage who looked like someone suffering from plot-driven ED sitting on a chair, doing nothing literally.

Nya felt a sense of unease after stepping inside. "M-Master. This place stinks, and I feel a big sense of unease~Nya!" She said, while getting closer to him, trying to cling to his arm.

Valeria immediately pushed her away. "D-Don't do it! M-Master has forbidden p-physical contacts. N-Not that I disapprove." She said, not realizing that she was getting close to him too.

At that moment, Seraphina also stepped in, pushing her away but moving towards the bulletin board to search for some quests.

"Te-Hee... I want to have fun with Master!" She said, with some saliva drooling from her mouth.

Mordecai gently slapped his face. 'Why did I take them with me? Am I that masochist? Ah wait. People like this stuff.' He thought. 'This is gonna be a very long day.' *sigh*

The noon sun filtered through the stained-glass windows of the [Silver Dragon's Golden Dawn] Guild, casting colorful, heroic patterns across a floor that still smelled aggressively of stale ale, shattered dreams, and the lingering sweat of last night's cliché tavern brawl.

At the front desk, the atmosphere was strictly administrative.

Kaitoyama—currently acting as the deeply traumatized, freshly redeemed dark electrician—stood before the counter, filling out standard guild registration forms with a cheap quill.

His generic brown traveler’s cloak was draped humbly over his shoulders, his posture respectfully slumped, and the brim of his ugly cap pulled down to cast a penitent shadow over his eyes.

"So," Elara, the receptionist, drawled, resting her chin on her hand as she watched him write. "You want to register three new party members under your newly reinstated Guild ID and under the same name party 'The Logic', right? And you are also officially declaring Princess Pyroetta as 'Missing in Action' in an uncharted Northern dungeon."

"That is correct, Miss Elara," Kaitoyama said softly, his voice trembling with a perfectly calibrated, Oscar-worthy amount of sorrow. "My heart aches for her sacrifice. I am but a weak, broken man, trying to rebuild his life in the Light. These three... unfortunate souls..." He gestured vaguely behind him. "...are refugees I picked up along the way. We bonded over our shared trauma."

A few tables away, the "traumatized refugees" were currently putting on an absolute clinic in aggressive caloric intake.

"Nya! These pancakes are amazing!" Nya the catgirl purred loudly, her tail swishing as she drowned a stack of buttermilk flapjacks in premium maple syrup.

"Don't eat so fast, you animal! Have some class!" Valeria, the tsundere swordswoman, scolded, before immediately shoving an entire link of elven sausage into her mouth and chewing fiercely. "Though... I suppose the seasoning is... acceptable. Not that I like it! Hmpf-!"

"Te-hee! The whipped cream is so fluffy!" Seraphina, the cleric, giggled, accidentally dipping the sleeve of her generic brown cloak into her coffee cup. "Oh no! Ara~! I'm dirty now! Master, are you gonna clean me?" She said.

Mordecai, on the other hand, pretended not to hear anything.

Elara looked at the three girls, who looked less like traumatized survivors and more like a high school anime club on a weekend brunch outing. Then, she looked back at Kaitoyama.

To the rest of the guild, Kaitoyama was probably a pathetic, reformed sinner who had cried at the city gates.

But Elara was a seasoned guild receptionist. She had spent all of her time evaluating the net worth, hidden stats, and emotional baggage of every adventurer who walked through those doors. She was, at her core, an apex predator of the socioeconomic food chain: a highly trained gold-digger.

She clearly saw right through his act, since she also noticed that his handwriting on the registration forms wasn't the shaky, uncertain scrawl of a broken man. It was the sharp, aggressive, perfectly aligned cursive of a corporate executive signing a hostile takeover bid. She noticed that, despite his slumped posture, his center of gravity remained perfectly balanced.

And most importantly, her [Appraisal: Financial Intuition] passive skill was vibrating. The man in front of her didn't exude the aura of a poor, lonely mage. Beneath the cheap cloak, he radiated the suffocating, intoxicatingly dark energy of a man who owned a diversified portfolio of incredibly lethal, highly profitable assets.

'Oh, he is faking it,' Elara thought, a genuine, delighted shiver running down her spine. 'He is faking it so hard. He’s not a redeemed peasant. He’s a toxic, manipulative Dark Prince wearing a peasant disguise. Mother of God, that is so incredibly hot. I want him to be mine and discuss quarterly earnings.'

"I'll process these forms right away, Mr. Kaitoyama~" Elara purred, leaning over the counter slightly to offer a generous view of her uniform's neckline, flashing him a knowing, sultry smile. "If there's anything else you need... administrative or otherwise... my shift ends at six. I'll leave the key for my room under the blan-"

Mordecai didn't even look up from the paperwork, completely ignoring the last part of her sentence. "A stamped receipt for the registration fees will suffice. I need to deduct it from my quarterly expenses."

Elara bit her lower lip. 'He's emotionally unavailable and obsessed with tax deductions. I can fix him.'

Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the guild crashed open.

The morning chatter in the tavern immediately died down. The Bards stopped tuning their lutes. Every eye in the room turned toward the entrance.

'Oh... I guess... that he's finally arrived...' Mordecai thought, as he felt the disgusting scent of apple pie and cheap perfume.

The Hero had arrived.

Nick stepped into the guild hall, flanked by his legendary party, but he didn't look like a hero. He looked like a man walking to his own execution.

His blonde hair was disheveled, his legendary armor lacked its usual divine polish, and the dark bags under his eyes spoke of a sleepless night spent staring at the ceiling, haunted by the specter of IRS audits and NDA contracts.

Mordecai couldn't help but feel a small pang of satisfaction, deep into his edgy soul.

Behind him, there was Egel, sporting a fresh, purplish bruise on her cheek from last night's brawl; Lucretia, who was squinting through the spider-webbed cracks of her broken left lens; and Luna, whose stoic, beautiful face was an unreadable mask of cold, calculating ice.

'Finally... we meet again.' Mordecai thought while signing the paperwork.

Nick took two steps into the hall and then raised his head.

His eyes locked directly onto the man standing at the reception desk.

The blood instantly drained from Nick's face as he turned a sickly, translucent shade of gray. His breath hitched in his throat, and for a terrifying second, he thought his heart had actually stopped beating.

'He's here.' Nick's mind screamed. 'The Dark Lord. The CEO. The man who owns my debt. He's standing right there, inside the capital! I'm completely sure that the cause of my suffering is him.'

[HIGHER REALMS LIVE CHAT]

Lukas_The_Great: OHHHH BOYSSSS! THIS IS SO F*KIN INTERESTING!

[VIP USER] NTR_Lover69: OH YEAH, THIS ASSHOLE IS GONNA GET CUCKED IRL HAHAHAHA #GETCUCKEDNICK

Larry_Simp01: THIS WOULD BE THE PERFECT SCENE FOR LARRY!!

Mordecai finished signing the last form. He turned around slowly.

For exactly one fraction of a millisecond, safely hidden beneath the shadow of his cap, a smile of pure, concentrated, unadulterated malice stretched across Kaito's face. It was the smile of a predator watching a mouse walk into a glue trap.

XxShadowSlayerxX : LMAO HE'S SLOWLY FALLING INTO THE SCRIPT! ABORT! ABORT!!

But as he raised his head, the malice vanished entirely. It was replaced by a look of overwhelming, tearful gratitude.

"Hero Nick! Your Majesty! My Bureaucratic Savior!" Kaitoyama cried out, his voice echoing through the silent guild hall. He took a stumbling, hesitant step forward, clasping his hands together over his chest like a devoted pilgrim. "You are here! Oh, praise the Light, my savior is here!"

Nick visibly flinched, taking a half-step backward, his hand instinctively twitching toward the hilt of his sword. The invisible NDA contract burned a warning against his wrist, reminding him of the 850,000 gold coin penalty hovering over his head if he spoke about him.

"I-I..." Nick stammered, his throat bone-dry.

"I was just registering my new companions," Kaitoyama continued, walking slowly toward the center of the room. He bowed deeply, incredibly respectfully. "I wanted to publicly thank you, Sir Nick. Your words at the border... your mercy... they broke the chains of darkness around my heart. I am a new man because of you. I should sing a song in your honor!" Mordecai added, triggering some PTSD in the chosen one.

The guild patrons erupted into soft murmurs of awe and respect, nodding at Nick's incredible benevolence.

But Nick’s party wasn't fooled.

Luna’s pointed ears twitched. She narrowed her slitted, silver eyes, activating her high-tier ranger analysis. To the naked eye, the man bowing before them was a weak peasant, but to Luna’s hyper-tuned senses, the air around Kaitoyama was practically screaming.

'He is compressing his mana,' Luna analyzed, her breath growing slightly shallow. 'He is compressing an ocean of dark, abyssal power into the size of a teacup just to play this role. The sheer control... the absolute, dominating arrogance required to mock the Hero to his face in the center of his own city...'

The dark elf felt a deeply inappropriate, feverish blush dust over her cheeks. The Yandere Corporate awakening within her soul took another massive step forward. She wasn't scared of the Dark Lord. She wanted to read his employee handbook. She wanted to know what his performance reviews looked like.

Lucretia, meanwhile, didn't notice the aura. "S-Sir Nick, isn't that the man who—waaah!"

The clumsy mage took a step forward, her boot catching on a sticky, un-mopped puddle of dried ale from last night’s riot. Without her depth perception, she had no chance. Lucretia flew forward, crashing face-first onto the wooden floorboards with a pitiful squeak, her staff clattering away. (NDA Effects)

Egel didn't help her up. The brawler tomboy muscle mommy was staring at Kaitoyama because she had a martial-arts-specific passive skill, [Chi Vision], that allowed her to see her opponents' fighting spirit and intent.

As she looked at the bowing, weeping man, Egel didn't see a penitent sinner.

She looked past the cheap cloak, right into his center, and what she saw made her blood run freezing cold.

Where a normal person's soul would burn with a warm, colorful flame of Chi, Kaitoyama had an abyss. It was a black, swirling, bottomless vortex of pure, calculated apathy and pain. It was the soul of a man who looked at the world and saw only numbers, liabilities, assets, and eternal suffering. It was fundamentally, terrifyingly empty of human warmth, replaced entirely by an insurmountable, crushing administrative weight.

But mixed with that terror was a sudden, violent realization: 'He is the one who humiliated the Saintess. He is the enemy.'

Egel’s battle-junkie instincts overrode her common sense. The bruises from last night throbbed, demanding violence.

"You lying bastard!" Egel roared.

Without drawing a weapon, without issuing a formal challenge, Egel bent her knees and exploded forward. The floorboards cracked under her boots. Her right fist ignited with a blinding, swirling vortex of condensed blue Chi. It was her ultimate opening strike—a blow designed to shatter armor and break guard.

Everyone in the guild stared at the scene, except the guy in a green tracksuit, who immediately ran away with his party after seeing what was going to happen.

"DIE!" she screamed, aiming a devastating punch directly at Kaitoyama's face.

Suddenly, the guild erupted in screams of panic. Nick reached out, but it was too late. "EGEL, NO!"

Time seemed to slow down. Egel's glowing fist was inches away from Kaitoyama’s nose. The impact was guaranteed. It was a flawless, unavoidable strike.

But in Kaito's mind, a different kind of calculation was occurring.

'If she hits me, I lose my cover. If I block it with dark magic, I'll probably break the NDA terms and trigger a holy war. If I take the hit, it will cost me at least 400 gold in healing potions and dental reconstruction.'

His brain instinctively shifted into accounting mode.

[PASSIVE SKILL ACTIVATED: FRAME-PERFECT TAX EVASION!]

[Description: Increases dodge chance by 99.9% as long as the user is actively calculating their quarterly earnings or financial losses.]

'Nick owes me 850,000 gold. At a compounding interest rate of 4.5% per month, accounting for inflation and the depreciation of the local currency against the elven standard...'

Kaitoyama didn't dodge like a martial artist. He didn't weave, duck, or perform a backflip.

He simply tilted his head 2.5 inches to the left.

It was a movement so utterly casual, so completely devoid of combat tension, that it defied the laws of physics. It was the exact movement a bored office worker makes to dodge a crumpled piece of paper thrown by a coworker.

Egel’s devastating, glowing blue fist sailed harmlessly past Kaitoyama’s ear, the sheer kinetic force of the punch blasting a hole in the wooden wall behind him.

Egel froze, her arm extended, her fist embedded in the wall. Her breath hitched.

'He... dodged it. That's impossible! Not even Nick could dodge something like that!' She looked at him from the corner of her eye.

Kaitoyama hadn't even blinked, but beneath the shadow of his cap, the disguise had slipped for a fraction of a second. His right eye was glowing. It was a piercing, abyssal, terrifyingly beautiful purple light that bored directly into her soul.

A violent, electric shiver ran down Egel’s spine, and the hair on her arms stood up. It wasn't just fear. It was the intoxicating, overwhelming thrill of a predator realizing it had just picked a fight with a god.

A deep, ferocious blush exploded across Egel’s cheeks. Her breathing grew heavy. The brawler in her was suddenly, overwhelmingly aroused by the sheer, untouchable superiority of the man standing casually beside her.

"Y-You..." Egel whispered, pulling her fist out of the wall, her knees feeling strangely weak.

"Please, Miss Egel," Kaitoyama said softly, stepping back and raising his hands in a placating gesture. The purple glow was gone, replaced by the innocent blue eyes of his disguise. "I do not wish to fight. I have sworn off violence. I understand your anger, but I am a changed man."

After hearing his voice, Egel couldn't help but feel a strange, tingling feeling between her legs. 'W-Wha-!' She instinctively covered herself and took some distance from him, not knowing what else to say.

Meanwhile, Luna was carefully analyzing every single moment in silence, not even caring about Nick or her companions. She was... enjoying?

Over at their table, Valeria briefly looked up from her second plate of sausages. "Did you hear a loud noise?"

"Nya, probably just the wind," Nya replied, licking maple syrup off her fingers.

Seraphina was busy trying to balance a spoon on her nose. "Te-hee! M-Master, look at me! Look at how good I am! Tell me I'm a good girl!"

They were completely, utterly ignoring the life-and-death struggle happening twenty feet away.

Back in the center of the guild, Nick’s fragile sanity finally snapped.

He looked at Kaitoyama’s fake, humble face and then saw Egel, his toughest fighter, blushing and trembling after missing a point-blank strike. He had also heard the murmurs of the guild praising the level 35 redeemed adventurer for his "pacifism."

The cognitive dissonance was too much. It was a suffocating, crushing humiliation. Kaitoyama was standing in the middle of Nick's city, stealing his PR, terrifying his harem, and thanking him for it.

[HIGHER REALMS LIVE CHAT, CHAOS MODE! SLOW MODE ACTIVATED]

NTR_Lover69: HAHAHHAHA, DID YOU SEE? HAHAHAHA #GETCUCKEDNICK

XxShadowSlayerxX: FUCK YEAHHHH! JOIN THE CORPORATE HORROR, YOU BEAUTIFUL MUSCLE MOMMY!!

Lukas_The_Great: ABSOLUTE MORDECAI!

Void_of_Rebirth: GET FUCKED NICK! AHHAHAHAH

SYSTEM_MODERATOR: EXCESSIVE SPAM OF #NTR, #GETCUCKEDNICK WILL BE PUNISHED, STOP FLOODING THE CHAT!

"SHUT UP!" Nick screamed, his voice tearing through the guild. "I'M FUCKING DONE!"

The fake hero lost his mind and forgot about the NDA and the Higher Realms' cameras. He only saw the face of the man who had bankrupted his soul.

Nick raised his hands to the heavens. A blinding, searing white light exploded from his palms. The sheer divine pressure cracked the windows of the tavern.

"I WILL ERASE YOU! [DIVINE WRATH: SUNBURST EXECUTION]!"

It was an S-Rank Holy Spell. A spell designed to vaporize high-level demons and turn undead into ash. A thick, roaring pillar of concentrated holy fire shot from Nick’s hands, tearing across the guild hall directly toward Kaitoyama’s chest.

"SIR NICK, NO!" Lucretia shrieked from the floor, knowing that killing a 'redeemed' man in cold blood would ruin the Hero's reputation forever.

The holy beam closed the distance in a millisecond.

Mordecai stood his ground. He didn't have time to cast a shield (He didn't know how). He didn't want to break his cover by summoning Larry to protect him, but he remembered the private message from the VIP viewer.

'Try eating magic. Like, an outright spell.'

As the searing, blinding holy light reached him, Kaitoyama didn't flinch.

It was a really risky move, but Mordecai also knew that the System wouldn't have allowed for bloodshed to happen.

So, he unhinged his jaw.

It wasn't a human movement. For a split second, the shadows within his cloak surged upward, wrapping around the lower half of his face, expanding his mouth into a terrifying, abyssal void that defied biological anatomy.

The roaring pillar of Holy Fire hit the void.

It didn't explode. It didn't burn him.

CRUNCH.

Kaitoyama’s jaws snapped shut.

The blinding light in the tavern instantly vanished, cut off as cleanly as flipping a light switch.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Kaitoyama stood in the center of the room. His mouth was closed. His cheeks were slightly puffed out.

Slowly, deliberately, he chewed.

Crunch. Crunch.

Swallow.

A faint wisp of holy white smoke escaped from his nostrils.

The entire guild stared at him in horrified, brain-breaking disbelief. The Hero had just cast an S-Rank execution spell, and the supposed 'weak dark mage' had literally eaten it like a spicy burrito.

[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL ANOMALY!]

[Target has consumed S-Rank Holy Magic!]

[ERROR: A VILLAIN CAN'T EAT HOLY MAGIC! THAT'S AGAIN THE SCRIPT!]

[Processing Flavor Profile... Taste matches: Over-sweetened cotton candy, raw arrogance, and a hint of cinnamon.]

[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: GASTROINTESTINAL DIVINITY]

[Description: The user can now safely consume and digest offensive magic. Consuming Holy Magic grants the 'Divine Indigestion' buff.]

[Effect: +500 Max Mana for 2 hours. Users' burps now inflict Area-of-Effect Holy Damage. Heartburn is highly likely.]

Nick collapsed to his knees, his hands dropping limply to his sides. His jaw hung open. His mind simply could not process what he had just witnessed. His ultimate attack... had been a snack.

Kaitoyama politely raised a hand and wiped a stray speck of holy light from the corner of his mouth.

He looked at Nick, his expression the absolute picture of tearful, humble gratitude.

"Thank you," Kaitoyama whispered, his voice echoing in the dead-silent room. "Thank you, Chosen Hero. Your light is so warm... you have shared a piece of your own divine grace to purify the last, lingering shadows within my stomach... I mean, my soul."

It was the ultimate cover-up. The ultimate PR spin. He had just turned an attempted murder into a religious baptism.

"He... he absorbed the Light!" A random priest, who had appeared out of nowhere in the guild, gasped, falling to his knees. "The Hero actually purified him with a non-lethal strike! Praise be! ALL HAIL THE HERO!"

Nick was hyperventilating, staring at the floor. He was completely, utterly defeated.

Kaitoyama took a step closer, looking down at the broken Hero. It was time to spring the trap.

"But please, Hero Nick," Kaitoyama said, his voice pleading, loud enough for the entire guild to hear. "I have one final, selfish request. A burden my weak, mortal body cannot bear."

Nick slowly lifted his head, his bloodshot eyes staring up at the man who owned him.

"I've lost my beloved companion, Princess Pyroetta," Kaitoyama cried, placing a hand over his heart. "But she is not dead! I can feel it! She is probably trapped in a terrible, uncharted dungeon in the Northern Sector. I am too weak to save her since I have lost my magic. But you... You are the Hero! I beg you, please, save the Princess!"

Nick’s eyes widened.

A Princess. A rescue mission. An uncharted dungeon where there were no cameras, no NDA contracts, no HR managers.

It was his way out. It was a classic, textbook trope. If he saved a Princess, his ego would be restored, and he would have probably regained some respect from his party. His fame would skyrocket. He would prove he was still the main character.

Luna, standing a few feet away, instantly smelled the corporate fine print. Her dark elf instincts screamed that this was a perfectly laid, legally binding trap.

"Nick, don't," Luna warned, her voice sharp, stepping forward to grab his shoulder. "It’s a setup. He’s manipulating you. Do not accept the quest."

But Nick’s ego, battered, bruised, and desperate for validation, completely overpowered his common sense. He violently shoved Luna’s hand away.

"I accept!" Nick shouted, scrambling to his feet, his chest heaving as he pointed dramatically at Kaitoyama. "Fear not, redeemed citizen! I, the Chosen Hero, shall venture into the Northern Sector! I will face the uncharted depths, and I will return the Princess to the Light! For justice!"

The guild erupted into cheers. The Bards began strumming their lutes with renewed vigor.

Egel then snapped to reality and cracked her knuckles, and a fierce, terrifying grin returned to her face, her eyes still darting toward Kaito with a hungry, flushed intensity. "Finally! A real fight! I'm gonna punch whatever has her hostage into orbit!"

Lucretia, having finally crawled back to her feet, adjusted her cracked glasses. "A-An uncharted dungeon? Oh dear... I need to buy more healing potions... and maybe some knee pads..."

Kaitoyama bowed deeply, hiding the predatory, corporate smirk that was practically splitting his face in half.

"Thank you, Hero," Kaito whispered softly. "I eagerly await your... results."

The trap was set. Nick was marching straight into an S-Rank dungeon guarded by a hyper-lethal, battle-obsessed monkey deity who was currently practicing how to smash mountains into gravel.

Kaitoyama turned around, gesturing for his three oblivious, well-fed party members to follow him. He then walked out of the guild doors, the cheers for the Hero fading behind him.

The air outside was crisp, and the plan was in motion.

But as Kaito pulled the brim of his cap down and stepped into the bustling streets of Oakhaven, he didn't notice the figure standing in the shadow of a nearby alleyway.

She wore a heavy, white holy cloak, the deep hood pulled up to conceal her golden hair.

Lucy watched him walk away. Her blue eyes tracked his every movement, analyzing the exact stride, the exact slump of his shoulders.

She took a deep, trembling breath, stepping out of the shadows to follow him. The Saintess was finally going off-script.