Mordecai rapidly dragged Pyra outside the big palace. To be specific, Mordecai dragged a Zombie. Pyra wasn't speaking or reacting to the world outside of her.
'Finally, no more mosquitoes,' Mordecai said to himself.
He even met the guard that had let him in.
Without saying a single word, Mordecai simply gave him a Thumbs Up, silently communicating: 'Everything's alright.' The guard gave him a nervous nod.
After that, Mordecai and Pyroetta moved to another street—specifically, the one filled with merchants selling hero-related merchandise.
The most disgusting thing Mordecai noticed was that even the "poorest" stand had something branded with their faces. 'Is this a fantasy world or a convention for isekai'd weebs?'
The only thing he could do was ignore it, but every scene was too disgusting to witness.
Too many people were buying junk they wouldn't even use, like Saintess Lucy's Bath Water or Sir Nick's Plastic Action Figures. Some of them were even fighting each other for the last items in stock. 'Ah... this place is not so different from Earth after all, stupid people are everywhere,' he sighed, before moving his gaze to Pyroetta.
He was still holding her hand, but she didn't seem to have noticed.
She was staring at the ground, motionless. Her tsundere soul would've usually tried to kill Mordecai if he touched her without a specific reason, which is why our beloved Necromancer quickly released her hand.
Then, a notification from the System appeared on top of her head. Mordecai looked at it, annoyed.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: YOUR COMPANION'S MORALE IS BELOW 0. YOU SHOULD CHEER HER UP. REWARD: +1 BOND LEVEL]
'Ah? You want me to disturb my inner peace?' Mordecai replied to the System.
[SYSTEM ALERT: NOT HELPING YOUR COMPANION WILL LEAD HER TO DEATH BY SUICIDE. HELP IS RECOMMENDED.]
'Oh come on, are you joking? Do I really have to worry about her mental health? Who cares about mine, then?!?'
The screen flickered in a more dangerous way. Pyroetta's body was shaking a little, and a single tear fell to the ground.
[DEATH BY SUICIDE IMMINENT]
"Great," Mordecai thought, rolling his eyes. "I spent resources hauling her all the way here, I tolerated her volume levels, and now she wants to reset her character just because some guy with too much hair gel rejected her? Inefficient."
He had no intention of hugging her, and certainly no intention of giving her a motivational speech like "Believe in yourself!" That was shonen anime garbage. He was an adult. And adults solve problems with financial logic.
Mordecai stopped abruptly in front of a particularly hideous stall. The merchant, a toothless man wearing a hat shaped like Nick's head, beamed at him. "Hey there, friend! Wanna buy a 'Demon King Voodoo Doll'? Or maybe a 'Crying Pillow approved by Saintess Lucy'?"
Mordecai ignored the merchandise. His eyes locked onto a handwritten sign hanging behind the counter: COMING SOON: THE 'SAD PRINCESS' COLLECTION. PRE-ORDER NOW!
'Eh? What the... Did they know about Pyroetta...?'
Mordecai grabbed Pyra by the shoulders. It wasn't a gentle touch. It was the firm grip of a technician about to hard-reset a faulty modem. He spun her around to face the sign.
The only thing remaing was a wake-up slap, but he didn't. He had the soul of a gentleman after all.
"Pyroetta," Mordecai said, his voice flat and cold. "Read."
Pyra, still glassy-eyed, slowly focused. "Sad... Princess...?" she whispered.
"Exactly," Mordecai pressed on, pointing at the crowd of idiots buying Lucy's dirty water. "Look at them. They are mindless consumers. If you give up right now, do you know what's gonna happen?"
Pyra shook her head weakly.
"Nick won't cry," Mordecai explained, as if breaking down a rental agreement. "Nick will say you sacrificed yourself for him. Lucy will launch a line of commemorative tissues. And this merchant? He will sell t-shirts with your dead face on them for 10 silver coins."
Mordecai leaned in close to her ear, whispering the cruelest, most motivating truth possible. "If you give up today and throw your life away because of an idiot, you become Merchandise, just like every person who died in any circumstance. You become free content for their channel. Do you really want your tombstone to be sponsored by a potion brand?"
Something clicked in Pyra's eyes. The image of Nick signing autographs on her coffin. The image of Lucy selling her tears. The void in her eyes vanished. It was replaced by a spark. Then by a flame.
[MORALE UPDATING...] [DEPRESSION: CLEARED.] [NEW STATUS: COPYRIGHT RAGE.]
"No..." Pyra growled, clenching her fists so hard her knuckles turned white. "No! They... they won't use my image without my consent!"
"Exactly," Mordecai said, letting her go. "The only way to screw them over is to stay alive and become the competition."
He turned to the merchant, who was watching them in confusion. "Hey, you," Mordecai said. "Do you have anything breakable?"
"Huh? Well, I have these commemorative Nick plates that came out wrong..." "I'll take them all," Mordecai said, with a firm tone.
Pyroetta's eyes widened as she looked at him. "Kaitoyama? What? Why?"
The merchant's eyes sparkled. 'MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY' That was the only thing readable on his face. 'Is he really buying all this unsellable garbage? What an idiot!'
But Mordecai opened his mouth to haggle, and the System intervened. His vision turned purple. A cold wind blew from nowhere.
[PASSIVE SKILL ACTIVATED: MALICIOUS EDGELORD] [Effect: Forces user to speak in 'Cringe Darkness'. NEW EFFECT: Charm rate +500% on weak-minded targets.]
Mordecai's voice dropped an octave. He didn't look at the merchant; he looked through him, into the abyss. He picked up a plate with Nick's smiling face.
"Cost?" Mordecai rasped, his eyes glowing with violet light. "You speak of coin... but what is the cost of a lie painted on porcelain? This smile... it is a prison. A fragile mask hiding the rotting soul of a world that has forgotten the taste of despair."
He tilted his head, his hair shadowing his eyes. "These plates... they are not merchandise. They are shards of false hope. And they are screaming... begging to return to the dust from which they came."
[DEBUFF APPLIED: CLICHÉ NAUSEA (Self)] [EFFECT: HEADACHE] 'Oh god,' Mordecai thought, feeling sick. 'Did I just call a plate a shard of false hope? Someone kill me.'
But the merchant didn't laugh. His jaw dropped. His eyes widened, sparkling with admiration. "Whoa..." the merchant whispered, clutching his chest. "That was... so metal. You're right. These plates... they are shackling my soul! You made me understand the darkness, master!"
[CHARM SUCCESS!]
The merchant shoved an entire crate of plates into Mordecai's arms. "Take them! Take them all! Liberate them from existence! I don't want your money, Dark Lord! Just destroy them!"
"Efficient," Mordecai muttered, dropping the Edgelord persona instantly.
He put a ceramic plate into Pyra's hands. "Shock therapy," Mordecai said. "Smash his face."
Pyra looked at the plate. She looked at Nick's plastic smile. With a scream that was entirely un-princess-like, she hurled the plate at the ground.
CRASH.
The plate shattered into a thousand pieces.
"Again," Mordecai ordered, handing her another one from his free crate. CRASH. "Again." CRASH.
After ten broken plates, Pyra was panting, but the color had returned to her cheeks. People were probably staring at them, but Mordecai didn't care. He had just converted "Suicide" into "Vandalism." A net improvement.
She even laughed maliciously, as if she were killing someone.
Mordecai then looked around him to see if someone was actually looking at the beautiful scene that was happening in front of him, where a girl was breaking merchandise of Sir. Nick.
Of course, nobody noticed that a crazy girl with twin-tails was randomly smashing ceramic plates while screaming. Everybody was too busy buying used bath water to fulfill their empty lives. The merchant was still charmed, so the only thing he did was... stare in awe.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION] [QUEST COMPLETED: CHEER UP THE PRINCESS.] [METHOD: AGGRESSIVE CAPITALISM LOGIC.] [REWARD: BOND LEVEL +1 (Current Status: Accomplice)]
"Feel better?" Mordecai asked, dusting off his hands.
"I feel..." Pyra straightened her back and fixed her twin-tails with a sharp snap. "I feel insulted. And furious. Take me somewhere where I can burn something bigger than a plate."
"Adventurer's Guild, then a random dungeon." Mordecai said, adjusting his cap that he took out from his inventory and turning toward the lower district. "We're going to register. And then... we're going to the sewers."
"Sewers?!" Pyra exclaimed, indignant, trotting to keep up with his long strides. "How dare you, INSOLENT! I am a noble! I should be dining in the Golden Hall, not wading through sludge!"
Mordecai ignored her. He actually smiled slightly. The silence was gone. The depressive zombie was gone. The annoying, loud, complaining mosquito was back. 'Everything is back to normal,' he thought with a strange sense of relief, but not because Pyra was "okay", but for the simple reason that the System was satisfied.
Satisfied system means no problems for Mordecai.
"So, do you know where the Adventurer's Guild is, Pyroetta?" Mordecai Asked.
"Hmpf!" She replied, crossing her arms, "OF COURSE, I know! I'll help you to get there, but not because I'm grateful to you or whatever, I'm doing that because a noble always help a commoner, so don't get the wrong idea!" She said, in an almost aggressive tone of voice.
Mordecai stopped listening at "Of course".
Then, Pyroetta started to walk, and Mordecai followed her.
As they walked away from the shiny, fake "Hero District" and descended toward the gritty reality of the slums where the Guild was located, Mordecai looked up at the sky. To anyone else, it was a clear blue afternoon. To Mordecai, the sky was scrolling with blue text.
[FEEDBACK FROM THE HIGHER REALMS]
Cringe_Lord_Supreme: "YOOO! 'Shards of false hope'?! 💀💀💀 I physically recoiled. That was the most chuunibyou thing I've ever heard. Malicious Edgelord is the strongest skill in the game confirmed."
Economy_Stonks: "Did he just Charm a merchant into giving him free stock by acting like a depressed emo teenager? That's not magic, that's Advanced Bartering. Respect."
Pyra_Fan_No1: "SHE SMASHED THE FACE! YES! Let the hate flow through you, Princess! Burn the merchandise! Burn the simps! 🔥🔥🔥"
NTR_Hater: "The way she looked at Nick's plate before destroying it... pure art. She's not a sad heroine anymore, she's a vengeful ex. Character Development: 100/100."
Lore_Master: "They are heading to the Guild now? Finally. Time to see if Mordecai can break the 'Generic Guild Receptionist' cliché too."
Rhia_Reader: Day one and he has already accumulated three team members: the skeleton inventory manager, the golem in need of a holiday and career change, the displaced princess. Who is next? And how will he help those around him process their problems?
Mordecai dismissed the windows with a blink. "Generic cliché?" he muttered to himself, stepping over a puddle of questionable liquid. "We'll see about that."
Ahead of them, the sign of the Adventurer's Guild creaked ominously in the wind.
'Oh, Rhia, I guess that the next member is someone who's gonna cry 24/7'