Sera dug herself out of the moss pile. She looked like a swamp monster. Her silver hair was matted with mud, and she had a banana peel stuck to her shoulder.
She stared at the mountain of trash that used to be the Boss. Then she stared at me.
"You..." she started, her voice shaking. "You threw... garbage at him?"
I didn't answer immediately. I walked over to where her sword had fallen, picked it up (struggling with the weight), and walked back to her. I stabbed the sword into the ground at her feet.
"Arthur?" She looked up at me, blinking. "I... I had him. He just used a cheap trick."
Something inside me snapped. It was the same snap I felt when Kevin used the office printer to print 500 flyers for his garage band.
"Sit down," I said. My voice was low. Cold.
"Excuse me?" She bristled, trying to regain her composure. "I am your master, you do not order—"
"SIT. DOWN."
The command was layered with so much managerial fury that she instinctively dropped her butt onto a crate.
I loomed over her. I wasn't tall, and I wasn't strong, but right now, I was the angriest man in the multiverse.
"Let's review the Key Performance Indicators of that encounter, shall we?" I pointed at the trash pile. "Item one: I gave a direct order to retreat based on verified data. Item two: You ignored said order to, and I quote, 'look cool'."
"I didn't say that!"
"It was implied! Item three: You got caught. Item four: I had to empty our entire inventory to save you. Do you know how much potential crafting material I just wasted? Do you know how unorganized this room is now?"
I gestured wildly at the chaos. "This is a logistical disaster, Seraphina! And it is entirely your fault."
Sera opened her mouth to argue, but closed it. She looked at the trash mountain. She looked at the spot where she almost died. She looked at my shaking hands.
She shrank a little. "I... I thought I could kill him."
"Thinking is my job," I said, tapping my temple. "Hitting things is your job. If you try to do my job, we die. If I try to do your job, we die. Do you understand the division of labor?"
She chewed her lip. The haughty Sword Saint looked like a scolding victim. "Yes."
"Good." I took a deep breath, smoothing down my suit jacket. I felt the adrenaline fading, replaced by exhaustion. "From now on, I call the plays. You don't improvise unless I say 'improvise'. If I say jump, you ask 'how high' and 'what is the trajectory'. Are we clear?"
Sera looked at her boots. Then she looked up, and for the first time, there was no disdain in her eyes. There was just... relief. Someone else was carrying the burden of keeping her alive.
"Clear," she mumbled. Then, a spark of her old self returned. "But you're still carrying my bag."
"Fine," I sighed. "But you're helping me pick all this up. I am not leaving that iron portcullis behind. It has high scrap value."
I turned back to the pile and activated [Tidy Up].
[Quest Complete: Floor 5 Cleared.]
[Reward: Access to 'The Surface'.]
The back wall of the throne room ground open, revealing a staircase bathed in natural sunlight.
"Arthur," Sera said, standing up and brushing the banana peel off her shoulder.
"What now?"
She pointed at the stairs. "That's the exit. We made it."
I looked at the sunlight. It was blindingly beautiful.
"Finally," I groaned. "I need coffee. And if this world doesn't have coffee, I am going to burn it down."
"I think I saw a Starbucks logo on a goblin shield once," Sera offered helpfully.
"Don't joke about that, Sera. It's cruel."
We walked toward the light, a battered combat butler and a messy knight, leaving a room full of organized trash behind us. The tutorial was over. Now, the real work began.