[Dimension 814: Aethelgard - The Pantheon Server Hub]
Princess Ignis paced outside the heavily fortified obsidian walls of the Pantheon Server Hub, dragging her broadsword through the dirt. The hub had been erected in the Slime Plains to act as a local routing station for the Pantheon Drive's data.
Inside the facility, a lone hero was currently bypassing the physical security.
Kaito, the "Sage of the East," possessed a unique cheat skill: Omni-Decryption. Unlike the other meat-head heroes, Kaito was a digital rogue. He had placed his hands on the obsidian server racks, his eyes glowing with binary magical code as he sifted through the Pantheon Group's data streams.
"I knew it," Kaito whispered in horror.
He had successfully traced the cross-platform API integration that Victor had set up between the Demon Lord's vitality metrics and the Pantheon Ledger. He could see the automated script. He could see the royalty payments being wired directly to Malakor's offshore account every time the boss faked a retreat.
"The war is rigged," Kaito gasped, stepping back from the server. "The Principal is funding the Demon Lord! I have to tell the Goddess! I have to tell the guilds!"
"You really shouldn't violate a Non-Disclosure Agreement, Kaito."
The temperature in the server room plummeted.
Victor Thorne stepped out from behind a towering server rack, his midnight-blue suit immaculate. He held a cup of black coffee in one hand and his gold-nibbed pen in the other.
Kaito drew his staff, glowing with decryption magic. "I downloaded the logs, Thorne! I have the API call history! I'm going to expose you as a war profiteer! The whole dimension will turn on you!"
"You are a Whistleblower," Victor sighed, shaking his head with profound corporate disappointment. "A notoriously unprofitable career path."
Victor opened the Tycoon's Ledger.
"If you kill me, the system automatically broadcasts the logs to the Goddess!" Kaito warned, his hands shaking.
"I have no intention of killing you," Victor checked his gold Rolex. "I am simply going to exercise my right to protect my proprietary code."
Victor slashed his pen across the Ledger.
"As per Section 42 of the Pantheon Drive Terms of Service, any user caught reverse-engineering or accessing backend API endpoints without authorization is immediately classified as a Malicious Threat Actor."
BZZZT.
A red holographic terminal materialized above Kaito's head.
[ACCOUNT TERMINATED. Reason: Corporate Espionage.]
Instantly, Kaito's legendary armor digitized and vanished. His staff evaporated into pixels. His entire inventory, his gold, and his "Pantheon Tokens" were permanently deleted from the cloud.
"My gear!" Kaito screamed, falling to his knees as he was stripped down to his linen tunic.
"Furthermore," Victor adjusted his cuffs, his Tycoon's Aura suffocating the rogue. "The Ledger has automatically filed a defamation lawsuit against you across all guild networks. Your credit score has been reduced to zero. No inn will host you. No merchant will sell to you. And your party members have been notified that associating with you violates their own Terms of Service."
Victor stepped over the trembling, utterly broken hero, walking toward the exit.
"Expose me if you wish, Kaito," Victor smiled a cold, ruthless smile. "But nobody believes a raving, homeless man with a zero credit rating."