The road to the capital was paved with dirt, gravel, and the incessant sound of a noblewoman trying to justify her own feelings.
They had been walking for an hour. To Mordecai, it felt like a geological era.
Lady Pyra walked slightly ahead of him, but she kept glancing back over her shoulder every thirty seconds. Whenever their eyes met, she would whip her head around so fast that her twin-tails lashed the air like whips.
"Hmph!" Pyra snorted, breaking the silence for the tenth time. She adjusted her frilly collar, her cheeks dusted with a persistent pink hue. "D-Don't think I'm letting you walk with me because I trust you, commoner! Or because I think you're... mysterious... or anything like that!"
She stopped and pointed a gloved finger at him.
"I simply require a porter! And since you showed some aptitude with that Slime, I am graciously allowing you to accompany me. It's a transaction! A noble using a tool! Do not misunderstand your position!"
Mordecai looked at her. He didn't see a girl; he saw a walking noise complaint.
He maintained his mask of calm indifference, the sunlight catching his dark hair and violet eyes in a way that screamed 'Main Character Energy'.
"Understood, my Lady," Mordecai said, his voice smooth. "I am but a humble servant to your greatness."
Pyra flinched as if hit by a physical attack. She grabbed her own chest. 'Oh no,' she thought, her internal monologue practically audible. 'Why does his voice sound so deep? Why is his aura so... sorrowful yet strong? Is this the forbidden allure of a fallen warrior?'
[PASSIVE EFFECT: CHARISMA (27) IS ACTIVE] [Target Status: 'Tsundere Panic' (Struggling to maintain hostility)]
Suddenly, a chime rang in Mordecai's ears.
[SUB-QUEST COMPLETED: LOVE INTEREST ACQUIRED] [Requirement: Establish a dynamic where she hates you but actually loves you.] [Reward: +1 Friend (Status: Complicated)] [Bonus: +50 XP]
Mordecai stared at the notification. He felt a vein throb in his temple. "Is this what they want?" he thought, glancing up at the invisible audience in the sky. "You people enjoy this? A mentally unstable teenager yelling at me is considered 'Romance'? Your standards are lower than my mana regeneration."
He sighed, a long, weary sound that Pyra immediately misinterpreted.
"W-Why are you sighing?!" she demanded, slowing her pace to walk beside him. "Is my company boring you? How rude! You should be honored!"
Then, her tone shifted. The curiosity ate away at her pride.
"Hey... Kaitoyama," she asked, looking at the ground. "Who are you, really? You move... differently. You don't walk like a peasant. You walk like a soldier. And that look in your eyes... it's like looking into a dead well."
Mordecai paused. This was it. The moment to solidify his cover. He needed a story. Something so cliché, so tragic, and so overused that a girl raised on heroic tales would eat it up with a spoon.
He stopped walking. He looked at the horizon, letting a shadow fall over his face.
"I was... a soldier," Mordecai lied, his voice dropping an octave. "Once. A long time ago. I served in the King's Special Black Ops Unit. The 'Shadow Electricians'."
"Shadow... Electricians?" Pyra whispered, eyes wide.
"We fixed the problems the light couldn't reach," Mordecai improvised. "But then... He came."
He clenched his fist, making the leather of his glove creak dramatically.
"Aldmax," Mordecai spat the name of his own alter-ego. "The Demon Necromancer. His minions attacked my village while I was away on duty. My wife... my dog... my goldfish... they were all gone when I returned. Only ash remained."
He turned to Pyra, putting on the saddest smile in the history of acting.
"That day, I buried my sword. I swore I would never fight again. I swore I would only teach. Because violence... violence brings nothing but empty circuits."
It was the worst story he had ever told. It was a patchwork of every B-movie script he had ever seen. Pyra, however, gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth. Tears welled up in her eyes.
"Oh, Kaitoyama..." she sniffled. "I... I didn't know! You carry such a heavy burden! You lost your... your goldfish?"
"His name was Sparky," Mordecai said gravely.
Pyra looked at him with newfound admiration. The 'creepy commoner' was gone. In his place stood a Broken Hero™ with a Tragic Past™.
"I... I will help you heal!" Pyra declared suddenly, blushing furiously. "I mean—not because I care! But because as a Noble, it is my duty to assist the traumatized peasantry! Yes! That's it!"
Mordecai nodded, suppressing the urge to vomit. "You are too kind."
They continued walking. The atmosphere had shifted. Pyra was now stealing glances at him not with suspicion, but with the starry eyes of a fangirl.
Ten minutes later, the moment was ruined by a guttural screech.
"GIGIGI!"
From the bushes, a group of five Forest Goblins leaped onto the path. They held rusted daggers and jagged clubs. They were ugly, smelly, and aggressively generic.
[ENCOUNTER: FOREST GOBLINS (Level 3)]
"Monsters!" Pyra shouted, her mood instantly switching to combat mode. She leaped forward, her twin-tails bouncing. "Step back, Kaitoyama! You swore an oath of non-violence! I, Lady Pyra, shall protect you!"
She planted her feet wide, raised her staff, and closed her eyes. She began to chant. And chant. And chant.
"Oh, Darkness that sleeps in the abyss... Oh, Crimson flame that burns the sinners... Hear my call and gather in the palm of my hand..."
The mana began to swirl around her. A massive, unstable fireball formed above her staff. The Goblins paused. They looked at her. One of them picked his nose. Another one yawned. They started walking towards her.
"Too long," Mordecai muttered from the back. "The latency on her casting is atrocious. She's running on dial-up internet."
Pyra was sweating. "...Become the arrow of judgment... EXPLOSION... of... wait, I lost the line..."
The Goblins were now ten feet away, raising their clubs.
Mordecai sighed. "I guess the oath of non-violence has a loophole for 'Technical Support'."
He moved. He didn't run like a hero. He walked briskly like a supervisor catching an employee violating safety protocols.
He stepped right behind Pyra. He reached out and grabbed her shoulders.
"Eek?!" Pyra squeaked, her concentration shattering. The fireball above her flickered dangerously. "K-Kaitoyama?! What are you—"
"Stop talking," Mordecai ordered, his voice right next to her ear. "You're leaking mana everywhere. You're trying to create a bomb when you need a bullet. It's inefficient."
He pressed his chest against her back to stabilize her (and to prevent her from falling over from the recoil of her own bad posture). He grabbed her right arm and forced it straight, pointing her staff directly at the lead Goblin.
"Your impedance is too high," Mordecai whispered, channeling his own mana into her circuits. "Don't think about a big, flashy explosion. Think about a circuit closing. Positive to Negative. Zap."
Pyra's face turned a shade of red that defied the laws of optics. 'He... He's touching me!' her mind screamed. 'He's holding me! His chest is so broad! His voice is so deep! Is this... is this a Joint Attack?!'
"I-I can't!" she stammered. "My style is—"
"Your style is garbage," Mordecai interrupted flatly. "Shorten the incantation. Focus the heat. One point. Now."
He squeezed her shoulder. A jolt of Short Circuit mana pushed through her veins, forcing her magic to condense.
"FIREBOLT!" Pyra screamed, just to release the tension.
It wasn't the usual explosion. A thin, blinding beam of superheated plasma shot from her staff. ZRAAAK.
It hit the first goblin. It went through the second. It decapitated the third. The beam continued for another fifty meters, punching a clean hole through an oak tree.
The remaining two goblins looked at their disintegrated friends. They looked at the smoking staff. They dropped their clubs and ran screaming into the woods.
Silence returned to the forest road. Pyra stood frozen, her arm still held up by Mordecai. Smoke drifted from the tip of her staff.
Mordecai released her and stepped back, dusting off his hands. "See?" he said, sounding like he just fixed a breaker box. "Efficiency. You saved 80% of your mana and achieved 100% lethality. Stop watching those anime about explosion magic. They're bad for your form."
Pyra slowly lowered her arm. She turned around.
She wasn't looking at the dead goblins.
She was looking at her own shoulder. The place where his hand had been.
"You..." she whispered.
She didn't even notice about the fact that he used an unknown word: "Anime"
Her face was steaming. Her eyes were spinning.
"YOU TOUCHED ME!" she shrieked, backing away and covering her chest. "You... You grabbed me! From behind! Without a permit! PERVERT! MANIAC! ASSAULTER! That was... that was..."
She paused, biting her lip. She looked at the ground, kicking a pebble.
"...that was incredible," she mumbled, so quietly Mordecai barely heard it.
"What was that?" Mordecai asked.
Pyra snapped her head up. The Tsundere mask slammed back into place.
Mordecai knew that she was about to scream for something embarassing , just like in those rom-com low budget animes.
Lady Pyra's mouth was trembling and her cheeks were completely red.
"3, 2 ,1..." Mordecai counted.
"I-I SAID YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL!" she yelled, pointing at him. "D-Don't think this means anything! I only allowed you to touch me because it was a tactical necessity! Y-You should be thanking me for letting a commoner handle a noble's mana circuits! B-Baka!"
She turned around and started marching down the road furiously, her ears burning red.
"I'm not washing this robe for a week..." she whispered to herself.
Behind her, a massive Golden Window appeared in the air.
[FEEDBACK FROM THE HIGHER REALMS]
Simp4System: "LETS GOOOOO! PHYSICAL CONTACT! He adjusted her posture! That's basically marriage in Isekai laws!"
Tactical_Nerd: "Finally. Someone told her that Explosions are inefficient. Based MC."
WaifuHunter99: "Did you see her blush? She's totally into him. The 'Tragic Backstory' lie was genius. She's cooked."
Hater_123: "Cringe. Too cliché. Dropped."
Mordecai read the comments. He looked at Pyra's retreating back. He felt a mix of victory and profound exhaustion.
"Friendship acquired," he muttered to himself. "Sanity... draining."
He put on a fake, gentle smile—the kind he used to give to clients who asked stupid questions—and started walking after her.
"Wait for me, my Lady," he called out. "We have much training to do if you want to impress the Hero."
'And even more manipulation to do if I want to survive,' he added silently.
Pyra didn't look back, but her pace slowed down just enough to let him catch up.
"Just... don't tell anyone about that." she said softly.
Mordecai almost laughed. "Your secret is safe with me."
After that, they keep walking... again.