Pixel Guard

He spent three years killing people for money. Now his job is making sure nobody kills the girl dressed as a cat goddess. In the near future, mega-corporations have discovered that cosplayers are worth more than celebrities. The top performers live like idols — private jets, penthouse suites, merchandise deals worth more than small nations' GDPs. They also attract obsessive fans, corporate espionage, and occasionally, people with guns. Kai Reuben, 21, is the most capable person in any room he walks into and the most uncomfortable. Three years as a mercenary left him fluent in threat assessment, efficient in a fight, and completely unequipped for civilian life. Peacetime is loud. People's emotions are data he doesn't know how to file. He has constructed a pleasant face for public use and it has been stuck there ever since. He retired eight months ago because the world got too peaceful and his reputation got too large — other mercenaries couldn't beat him, so they started targeting the people near him instead. He walked away before anyone else got hurt. He has been trying to figure out what to do with himself ever since. He does not figure this out at a cosplay convention on a Saturday afternoon. What he does instead is deflect a bullet with a combat knife in front of thirty thousand live viewers, neutralise three armed assailants, critique the venue's west walkway security to the responding officers, and retrieve his cold brew. The clip hits one million views before midnight. The cosplay internet decides he's the most committed method actor they've ever seen. NovaCorp's Director Chantal decides something more accurate and makes a call. By Sunday morning, Kai Reuben has a new job he didn't ask for, a contract he probably should have read more carefully, and a problem he has absolutely no protocol for. PIXEL GUARD is a light novel in the action romantic comedy tradition — overpowered protagonist, genuine emotional stakes, and a harem that operates less like a competition and more like a slowly assembling disaster that Kai is professionally equipped to survive and personally entirely unprepared for. The action is real. The comedy is real. The feelings, which Kai has filed under pending further classification and fully intends to address at a later date, are very real. He is going to have to stop moving toward the threat eventually. He is not there yet. [ Action · Romantic Comedy · Harem · Overpowered MC · Idol Industry · Found Family · Slow Burn · Comedy of Errors ]