The slime assembly line had stopped with the 'Death' of tha Chad Slime King.
"Okay, Luketto, get back into the pocket." Mordecai said. Luketto the golem shrank instantly, becoming a cool, familiar stone in Mordecai's pocket.
Then, realizing that Pyroetta was right next to him, Mordecai secretly recalled Larry back into the void using telepathy.
Larry the skeleton gave a sharp, professional nod followed by a thumbs up and dissolved into a wisp of grey mist, recalled to the silent, paperwork-filled void he called home. Efficient. Unquestioning.
"Come on," Mordecai said, his voice flat. "The real problem's deeper."
Pyroetta reclutantly followed him, clearly implying that she wanted to go back to the guild.
The tremors began as they descended the next spiral staircase. Not the sporadic shudders of a sleeping beast, but the deep, rhythmic groans of a world under immense, structural stress. Each step made the ancient stone quiver. Dust rained from the ceiling.
'Ah, I saw this scene 1000 times.' Mordecai thought. 'Now we're gonna see the sacred sealed monster and randomly awaken it, just like Korean good looking guy.'
Pyra's bravado from the slime-stomping evaporated. Her knuckles were white on the hilt of her sword. On the fifth, particularly violent tremor—a sound like continents grinding together—she let out a shriek and latched onto Mordecai's arm with the strength of a drowning woman.
"L-Let it be clear!" she squealed, her voice a full octave too high. "I am only permitting you to touch me because I sense your fear! It is a noble's duty to protect her civilians from—IIIIIIH!"
Another thunderous roar erupted from the depths, vibrating the very air. Pyra buried her face in his sleeve.
Mordecai didn't showe her off. A detached, logistical part of his brain calculated that prying off a hysterical tsundere would create more noise and drama than simply tolerating the contact. He let her cling, ignoring her completely, his body as unresponsive as a coat rack.
Mordecai noticed that Pyra wasn't just holding his arm; she was rhythmically kneading his bicep, like a housewife testing the quality of a steak at the supermarket. When he looked at her, she blushed and looked away, muttering something about 'checking his structural integrity'
'Classic.'
The stairs ended. The cavern that opened before them was not a treasure vault. It was an archive of despair.
The air was cool, dry, and smelled of ancient vellum and profound neglect. Towers of ledgers and scrolls reached towards a vaulted ceiling lost in shadow. Dust lay thick on everything. And in the center, behind a colossal desk carved from a single slab of petrified gloom, sat Him.
He wasn't fighting. He wasn't posturing. He was working.
A quill of bleached raven bone scratched across a parchment. The figure was immense, a skeleton of profound and terrible antiquity.
His bones were not white, but the color of old ivory, etched with silver filigree that depicted scenes of cosmic futility. A tattered robe of administrative grey hung from his broad shoulders. Upon his head sat a simple, heavy circlet of lead—the Crown of Tedium.
[Ugo, The Skeletal Archivist – Lv. 99]
Titles: The Unfiled, Lord of the Pending, Master of the Incomplete Record.
Mordecai's eyes narrowed. He triggered his diagnostic sight.
'I have a feeling that this world is spawning enemies based on my traumas'.
Pyroetta immediately hid behind him, completely terrified by what she saw.
Mordecai sighed and then used 'Reveal Magic' to analyze the enemy in front of him.
[REVEAL MAGIC: MAXIMUM ANALYSIS]
UGO, THE SKELETAL ARCHIVIST, CURRENT STATS
VIT ∞ (His existence is a persistent system error)-Immortal
STR 850 (Can bench-press the weight of forgotten knowledge)-Super Strong
INT 950 (Knows every loophole in the fabric of reality)-Infinite Intelligence
AGI 1 (Hasn't moved from that chair in a millennium, but he's faster than the heroes)-1 When seated, 999 when angered
SKILLS :
[Final Notice] -A decree that severs a soul's contract with life if his enemy loses
[Audit of the Damned]Scans a target for all moral and contractual failings, applying crippling debuffs.
[Summon Lesser Clerk] Conjures spectral bureaucrats that harass the target with paperwork and procedural questions, blocking his enemies.
[Passive: Aura of Terminal Boredom]Gradually reduces the will to live of all beings in a 1km radius, lowering their life span.
EQUIPMENT: Trash robes - Gonna make the enemy understimate him.
Sword of the eternal damnation: Seal the souls of the fallen heroes into his sword, forcing them to work for him without a salary.
Magic circlet: Nothing, just to not appear baldNONE.
'Uhm, what the hell-?'
Mordecai looked at the stats. He looked at Ugo, diligently scratching away. He turned on his heel.
"Absolutely not. Not worth the XP. We're leaving."
[SYSTEM ALERT: IMMINENT BOSS BATTLE. EXIT LOCKED.]
The doorway sealed itself with a wall of shimmering legal parchment.
The scratching stopped.
Ugo, The Skeletal Archivist, slowly laid down his quill. He did not stand. He simply turned his skull towards them. The lights in his eye sockets were a dim, administrative grey.
"...Again." His voice was the sound of a tomb sealing, deep, dry, and utterly weary. "The noise. The disruption. The 'heroes'. With your shiny weapons and your gaudy prophecies. Didn't you notice I was busy? I made sure to be noisy enough to send away the intruders."
He gestured a bony hand at the endless shelves. "I have been cataloguing the futility of existence since the first mortal drew a shaky breath and wondered 'why?' I file reports on entropy. I triplicate the death warrants of galaxies. This... this is not a kingdom of terror. It is a repository of cosmic disappointment."
He finally pushed his chair back, the sound like a mountain sighing. "And I am tired of it. Tired of the cycle. You arrive. I deliver my monologue about eternal darkness. You give a speech about hope. We exchange melodramatic blows. Eventually, you 'win' because the higher realms want that and I dissolve. Then I respawn, and the paperwork has piled up even higher. It's... inefficient."
'Inefficient.' The skeleton was talking just like Mordecai.
"That's why I became tired of letting those fake heroes win and I kill everyone who enters here, so they will understand my pain of working hard for nothing. Now all the heroes who came to me during these 2000 years are all dead." He said, continuing his work.
But his voice carried a glimpse of sadness.
Our beloved necromancer saw an opening. His voice dropped by an octave, but became surprisingly soft. The 'talk no jutsu'. " You see, I was just like you... suffering from a boring life... taking orders from others... not being free of doing what we want... see? There's no need to fight... Maybe... the system is flawed. Maybe you don't have to be the final boss. You could... delegate. Automate."
Ugo stared. Then he let out a hollow laugh that shook dust from the ceiling. "Delegate? To whom? The imps are illiterate. The spectres lack focus. No. This is my function. A function I have come to despise with every fiber of my being, but a function nonetheless." The grey light in his eyes hardened. "So let us proceed. Let us be done with this... formality."
Pyra was a trembling statue behind Mordecai. "K-Kaitoyama..."
Mordecai took advantage of her fear to say: "Go hide behind that rock, now. I'll take care of it".
Pyroetta immediately nodded and went to hide.
Ugo raised a hand. Not in anger. In profound, soul-crushing boredom. "Fine. The ultimate attack of a Lord of Bones: [Cataclysmic Annihilation Beam]."
A sphere of sickly grey energy the size of a cartwagon coalesced above his palm. It hummed with the power to un-write history. Then, with a sigh, Ugo casually flicked his wrist.
The beam lanced out—and slammed into the ceiling thirty meters to their left, vaporizing stone and several centuries of tax records.
"Oh," Ugo mumbled, not even looking. "Missed."
He fired again. A [Soul-Severing Scythe] of energy materialized and whirled through the air, carving a useless groove in the far wall.
Another blast. A [Wave of Absolute Despair] washed harmlessly over a stack of ledgers, making them look slightly more depressed.
"You see?" Ugo said, sounding almost apologetic as he launched a [Void of Unbeing] that popped like a soap bubble against the floor. "It's the repetition. I'm so accustomed to you hyperactive, acrobatic heroes dodging and weaving with thrilling grace... I just aim at where you should be. But you... you're just standing there. It's throwing off my calibration. How dreadfully mundane. You're probably moving at the speed of light!"
'Poor guy, he's literally so stunned that he's hitting random spots because he thinks I'm gonna jump and dodge everywhere,'
Mordecai wasn't standing there out of bravery. He was standing there because he was seeing.
As Ugo launched another half-hearted, world-ending attack (a [Necrotic Eruption] that fizzled out in a pathetic puff of green smoke), Mordecai's vision changed. The magical runes on the walls weren't just glowing lines. They were circuit diagrams. The flows of oppressive energy weren't just atmosphere; they were power lines, dangerously overloaded. The very structure of the archive was a blueprint, and it was a mess.
He wasn't seeing magic. He was seeing code. And it was full of bugs.
And in that moment, he unlocked a new skill.
[ABILITY UNLOCKED: MAGIC ANALYSIS – ADMINISTRATOR LEVEL]
[Description: You perceive the underlying rules of the world. You can identify violations in the logical, magical, or structural 'code'. If a violation exists, you can, with effort, enforce a patch.]
'So I've literally become a moderator of a discord server...?'
Power surged through Mordecai—not the brute force of mana, but the cold, absolute authority of compliance. Malicious compliance.
"Stop," Mordecai said. It wasn't a shout. It was a command issued to a malfunctioning program. His voice was... too deep, enough to catch the Lich's attention.
Ugo paused, a flicker of something akin to curiosity in his grey eyes. "Why? The sequence is not complete. There are still seven more theatrically-named but ultimately pointless attacks in my repertoire."
"Because," Mordecai stated, walking forward and pointing an accusatory finger at the architecture, "this entire facility is in violation of Interdimensional Safety Code 7-A: Subterranean Lair Standards."
Ugo's jawbone actually dropped. "...Pardon?"
"Violation One: Inadequate egress points. A single entrance/exit constitutes a critical fire and structural hazard. See subsection 12.C."
"Violation Two: Unsecured magical energy conduits." He pointed to the pulsing veins of grey energy in the walls. "Exposed, high-yield necrotic mana without proper shielding. That's an environmental contamination risk."
"Violation Three: Load-bearing structures compromised by undocumented excavation." He kicked a pile of scrolls, revealing a deep crack in the floor. "This whole wing is a collapse waiting to happen. Did you even get a permit for this sub-level?"
Ugo, the Level 99 Skeletal Archivist, took a step back. The terrifying aura of cosmic despair flickered and was replaced by something worse: bureaucratic anxiety.
"The... the permits... I filed the forms... the Ethereal Planning Commission is terribly backlogged..."
"Unacceptable. As an acting inspector for this metaphysical jurisdiction, I am levying fines totaling... 50,000 Soul-Stamps for these infractions." Mordecai's eyes were shining of a deep purple and his '[Totally Hide Status]' had completely disappeared, revealing his 'True form' of Mordecai Von Ravenloft.
In that moment, in Ugo's eyes, there was... terror. He had seen someone very familiar to him.
Ugo looked at his desk, piled with his own unfinished work. The weight of millennia of administrative failure seemed to crush him. "I... I don't have that kind of capital. My assets are... tied up in long-term futility bonds."
Mordecai nodded. From within his coat, he produced a contract. It was thick, the parchment crisp and official. The header read: [SOUL CONTRACT: BINDING ARBITRATION & DEBT RESOLUTION].
"Then we move to repayment in labor. Position: Junior Associate of Arcane Compliance & Filings. Contract duration: One thousand years. The first century is a probationary internship—unpaid, but you will receive extensive training in modern regulatory frameworks and a cubicle." He gestured to a dusty, cobwebbed corner. "You'll have to furnish it yourself."
Ugo the Unfiled, Master of the Incomplete Record, stared at the contract. The grey light in his eyes wavered, then changed. Not to anger, or fear. To relief. Someone was finally giving him a new form to fill. A new system. A way out of the endless, boring loop.
"You... you speak with the authority of one who understands the rules," Ugo whispered, a strange reverence entering his dry voice. "You are not a hero. You are... management. Are you the reincarnation called Aldmax, who first inscribed the Laws of Shadow upon the Void?"
Mordecai didn't blink. "Sign the paperwork."
With a hand that no longer trembled with boredom but with purpose, Ugo took the proffered pen from the suddenly-reappeared Larry (who materialized holding an inkwell). He signed with a flourishing, elegant script.
[CONTRACT SEALED. UGO IS NOW A MINION.]
[EXP GAINED: +100.000, LEVEL UP: +99, PLEASE COMPLETE THE QUEST AND DISTRIBUTE YOUR STAT POINTS ONCE YOU'RE IN THE GUILD]
[NEW ABILITIES UNLOCKED FOR MORDECAI:]
· [Executive Order]: Enforce a single, simple rule in an area (e.g., "No teleportation," "Silence"). Violators suffer system-mandated penalties.
· [Passive: Corporate Lethargy Field]: Reduces enemy attack speed and aggression significantly. Makes them feel like it's 4:55 PM on a Friday.
· [Hostile Takeover]: Attempt to bind a defeated enemy with a disadvantageous employment contract.
· [Paperwork Avalanche]: Bury foes under a cascade of binding forms and triplicate documents.
· [Call of the Undead]: Use edgy vocal commands to Summon Ugo to Assist you in battle under a condition. Condition: The enemy must be breaking the rules.
[NEW ITEMS IN INVENTORY]
· [Sword of the Eternal Damnation]: Seal the souls of the fallen heroes into his sword, forcing them to work for him without a salary.
· [Ugo's Contract].
Pyra had not seen any of this. She had shrieked and scrambled behind a large, fallen ledger, pulling her cloak over her head. She heard booms, felt tremors, heard Mordecai's calm, flat voice saying incomprehensible things about "egress points" and "permits."
When the silence became absolute, she dared to peek.
The giant skeleton was gone. The oppressive aura had vanished. Mordecai was simply standing there, still with his normal clothes and status of [Kaitoyama] picking up a small, obsidian-black Skeleton King's Core that pulsed with a soft, orderly light.
"K-Kaitoyama...?" she squeaked, emerging. "The... the monster?"
"Resolved," he said, pocketing the core. "Let's go."
Pyra stared at him. He was untouched. Not a hair out of place. He had faced down an entity of legendary, soul-freezing power... and it had just... disappeared. He hadn't fought. He hadn't cast a grand spell. He had... processed it.
A warmth exploded in her chest, rushing to her face. Her heart hammered against her ribs. 'He saved me. He stood his ground. He protected me. He didn't even break a sweat. He's... incredible. I think I found my soulmate, the one my old wizard mother once told me...'
"K-Kaitoyama, I..." she began, her face a brilliant crimson.
He looked at her, utterly blank. "What?"
"N-Nothing!" she shrieked, spinning around so fast her twin-tails whipped. "Don't get the wrong idea! It's just... dusty in here! Let's go, now!"
But inside, she knew. She was a goner. Irrevocably, disastrously in love with the most boring, terrifying, bureaucratically-minded man in all of existence.
The walk back to the Adventurer's Guild was quiet. Pyra walked a careful two steps behind, stealing glances at Mordecai's back, while he scrolled through his new System menus with the focus of a man reviewing a spreadsheet.
At the reception desk, the clerk with the thick glasses stared in disbelief.
"You... you cleared the Slime Dungeon and the Source of the Deep Tremors?" She said, her voice was a mix of surprise and arousal.
Mordecai dumped the sack of slime cores on the counter, and placed the elegant, dark Skeleton King's Core beside it with a soft clink.
"Yes," he said. "Now, about the reward. I need to see the breakdown. Are there deductions for guild fees? Is the bounty on a 'Skeletal Archivist' taxed differently than a standard 'Skeleton King'? I want an itemized receipt."
[FEEDBACK FROM THE HIGHER REALMS]
Office_Drone_42: HE OFFERED HIM AN UNPAID INTERNSHIP. FOR A CENTURY. I'M WHEEZING. THIS IS THE MOST EVIL, MOST BEAUTIFUL THING I'VE EVER READ. TRUE CORPORATE HORROR.
Tsundere_Theorist: Pyra falling in love because he "processed" a god-like entity is the purest tsundere logic. She didn't see a cool fight; she saw competent problem-solving. That's her kink. Perfection.
SysAdmin_Of_Hell: "Magic Analysis" evolving into "Admin Access to Reality's Source Code" is a conceptual masterstroke. Mordecai isn't a necromancer. He's the IT guy for a broken universe, and he's about to put in a ticket... for the entire world.
Lawful_Neutral_Gang: The Skeleton King being more worried about permit backlogs than his own annihilation is the most lawful-neutral thing ever. Bureaucracy always wins.
NTR_Lover69: I can't wait for Nick and Lucy to try and bully him, only for Mordecai to have them served with a cease-and-desist by a Level 99 Skeletal Lawyer. The revenge will be litigious.
camoscemo: Poor Larry, that's the quintessence of internships. You either intern hard enough to earn payroll… or you get converted into a crunchy snack.