Kai stretched his arms, feeling the high thread-count sheets against his skin. For the first time since being Isekai’d into this glitchy nightmare, he wasn’t sleeping on dirt or running from a 2D sprite. He was a Gold Rank Summoner. He was a VIP. He was... starving.
Sunlight streamed through the massive bay windows of the Adventurer’s Guild luxury suite. It was a beautiful morning. The kind of morning that deserved a reward.
"System," Kai mumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "I’m hungry. Give me a full English Breakfast."
A blue box flickered into existence.
[Voice Command Recognized] [Processing: "Full English Brick Fast"]
Kai froze. "Wait. No. I said Breakfa—"
[Execution: Immediate]
The sunlight vanished.
There was no sound of masonry being laid. No grinding of mortar. One second, there was a window with a view of the city; the next, there was a solid, seamless wall of red clay bricks. The room plunged into darkness.
"Oh come on!" Kai yelled, throwing the covers off. He scrambled to the door. "System! Cancel! Undo!"
[Error: Construction Complete. Structure is "Fast" (Fixed/Secure).]
Kai jiggled the door handle. It didn’t move. The door frame had been bricked over from the outside. He was sealed in a tomb of high-quality English masonry.
"Gideon!" Kai shouted, banging on the wall. "Gideon, wake up! We’ve been walled in!"
A muffled snore came from the corner of the suite where Sir Gideon had insisted on sleeping on the floor ("A knight must remain vigilant," he had claimed, using his pumpkin as a pillow).
"Sir Gideon!"
"Huzzah!" Gideon bolted awake, his armor clanking. "The demons are upon us! I shall... by the Light, why is it so dark? Have we been swallowed by a abyss beast?"
"The System bricked us in!"
"Bricked?" Gideon’s voice trembled. "Is this a high-level Earth spell? A seal of eternal containment?"
"No, it’s a typo!" Kai placed his hand on the cold wall. "Okay, think like a dev. If
Object_State = Fast, I need to change the state to Open."
He cleared his throat. He needed to sound authoritative. He needed to use the admin override phrase.
"System!" Kai bellowed. "Open Sesame!"
The blue box jittered.
[Voice Command Recognized] [Processing: "Open Says Me"]
[Authority Check: PASSED] [Action: The Wall obeys the Ego of the User.]
The wall didn’t crumble. It didn’t swing open. Instead, the bricks began to vibrate. A deep, booming voice that sounded suspiciously like Kai’s own voice but distorted by a subwoofer erupted from the mortar itself.
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"ME!!!" the wall screamed.
BOOM.
The bricks exploded outward with the force of a cannon blast. The entire front facade of the VIP suite blew out into the street, showering the cobblestones below with red dust and debris.
Kai stood at the edge of the jagged hole, coughing in the dust cloud. The fresh air rushed in.
"We’re free," Gideon whispered, awestruck. "Your voice... it commands the very stone to scream in your voice. Truly, you are a terrifying wizard."
"Let's never speak of this," Kai said, wiping brick dust off his pajamas.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The door behind them—which was no longer blocked, as the wall holding it was gone...opened politely.
A massive Orc in a tailored three-piece suit stepped over the rubble. He adjusted his silk tie, which looked comically small against his neck muscles. This was Guildmaster Grom.
"Good morning, gentlemen," Grom rumbled. His voice was like gravel tumbling down a velvet slide. "I trust your sleep was... impactful?"
Kai kicked a loose brick under the bed. "Hey, Grom. Just... doing some remodeling. Open concept. Very trendy."
"Indeed," Grom said, stepping around a crater in the floor. "I appreciate a man who disrupts the paradigm. However, we need to circle back to the deliverables from yesterday."
He pulled a scroll from his suit pocket and snapped it open. It was long. It unrolled past his knees, hit the floor, and rolled out the door.
"The invoice," Grom clarified.
"Invoice?" Kai laughed nervously. "I thought Gold Ranks got perks?"
"We do," Grom said. "We leverage a high-yield perk structure. But the operational costs of your... Alpacalypse... have created a deficit in our quarterly projections."
He began to read.
"Item One: Livestock Removal Services. Five thousand head of Alpaca. We had to hire every shepherd in three kingdoms. Cost: 5,000 Gold."
"That seems high," Kai squeaked.
"It includes the spit hazard pay," Grom noted. "Item Two: Structural Damage to the Training Hall. The floor is covered in wool that cannot be burned. We have to replace the foundation. Cost: 2,000 Gold."
"Okay, but...."
"Item Three: Assault on City Guard," Grom continued without looking up. "Slapping a sentry with a river bass. Usually a prison sentence, but we leveraged your Gold Status to convert it to a fine. Cost: 500 Gold."
Grom looked up, his tusks glinting. "And finally. Item Four: Unauthorized Masonry Demolition via Egotistical Shouting. Cost: TBD."
Kai swallowed. "So, what’s the total damage?"
"Roughly eight thousand gold coins," Grom said calmly. "To put that in perspective, the average peasant earns three gold a year."
Kai looked at Gideon. Gideon looked at his pumpkin.
"I have twelve coppers," Gideon offered helpfully. "And some roasted seeds."
"I see," Grom said. He didn’t look angry. He looked... disappointed. Like a project manager realizing the deadline was going to be missed. "This creates a bottleneck. If you cannot liquidate assets to cover the debt, I am afraid we will have to initiate the Default Protocol."
"Default Protocol?" Kai asked. "Is that like... you kill us?"
"Heavens no," Grom chuckled. "We aren't barbarians. We simply send you to Debtor’s Prison. It is a lovely facility. The labor is eternal, and the gruel is... sufficient."
"I can't go to prison!" Kai panicked. "I have a life! I have a PC that's probably still running! If I don't get back to the real world, my landlord is going to throw out my limited edition mechanical keyboard!"
Grom tapped a sharp claw against his chin. "There is... an alternative. A high-risk, high-reward opportunity that could balance your ledger."
"I'll take it," Kai said instantly. "Whatever it is. I just need to pay this off so I can find the Server Room and go home."
"Excellent synergy," Grom smiled. "We have a frantic ticket from the Northern Mines. Production has halted due to... Bugs."
Kai blinked. "Bugs?"
"Infestations," Grom said, waving a hand. "Crawling things. They are interfering with the extraction process. Nobody wants the job because the previous team was... deleted."
Kai’s eyes lit up. Bugs.
Not giant monsters. Bugs.
He was a developer. He had spent his entire life fixing bugs. If the System was glitching out in the mines, he was the only person on the planet qualified to fix it. He wouldn't even need to fight. He just needed to find the error in the code and patch it.
"Grom," Kai said, grinning confidently. "Consider it done. I am an expert in Bug Removal. I’ll debug that mine so hard it won’t know what hit it."
Grom raised a thick eyebrow. "You are confident. The last bugs were reported to be the size of ponies and possessed acidic spittle."
"Spaghetti code creates big problems," Kai dismissed. "I’ll handle it. Come on, Gideon. We’re going to work."
"As you command, my Lord," Gideon said, hoisting his pumpkin with tragic dignity. "I shall smash these insects with the Gourd of Justice."
"The synergy here is promising," Grom said, handing Kai the quest scroll. "Please try not to brick the city gate on your way out."