The interior of Zelretch office was mind bogglingly massive. There could be little doubt that the interior of the room was orders of magnitude larger than what the outside could possibly allow for. Simply by peering into the room it became apparent that several football stadiums could easily fit inside by the very fact that, for reasons unknown to anyone reasonably sane, there were in fact several football stadiums inside the room. The titanic walls of the room reaching out into a blue sky only made it all the more surreal.
Shirou Emiya who had signed a one year contract that paid a daily commission for having the whole room cleaned by the end of each night quickly realized that he had been duped.
A rather problematic turn of events all things considered after having found out that his inheritance and life savings had all mysteriously disappeared by the end of the fifth grail war. Something that Shirou honestly wouldn't have minded if it weren't for how much traveling around to save people would cost.
The only consolation was that Shirou had been allowed to put in a few amendments of his own into the contract that would let him pursue his path as a hero of justice even while on the job. Even better was that Zelretch's own amendments would also allow Shirou save people in ways not normally possible to the average magus. Shirou had already admitted to the hypocrisy of his ideals so he really didn't see a reason for him to not take advantage of the situation.
"You better get started" the vampire said with a smug smile as he looked at a silver pocket watch fashioned to a chain "you have a little under eight hours to get the room cleaned."
Turning to his amused new employer Shirou gave a quick unenthusiastic salute in response and brought out his cleaning supplies. A splintered wooden broom, a dust pan, a rusty bucket with holes, a bar of soap, and a rotting mop. This might be harder than he thought.
Recent events may have successfully convinced the department heads to have light bulbs installed throughout the Clock Tower, but technologies such as vacuum cleaners were still a full century ahead of anything else that was socially acceptable by the magus nobility that ruled the institution.
Or so Zelretch claimed. Shirou was more inclined to believe that his new employer was just a massive troll and wanted to make this as difficult as possible for all parties involved. After all, Shirou had seen at least one man walking around playing a portable gaming system.
Fortunately, Shirou had become very good at cleaning large areas after having owned what amounted to a small mansion in the years since his adoptive fathers passing. And all of that was before he had started to properly learn magecraft under Rin's tutelage. It still wouldn't be enough, but never let it be said that Shirou was the type to give up just because of silly concepts such as 'common sense' or 'reality.'
"Trace on" stated Shirou using his catch phrase to activate his magic circuits. Using alteration Shirou changed the broom into a slightly more manageable form and then used reinforcement to enhance the concept of moving dust and dirt.
Hopefully he would be able to achieve the output of an industrial grade fan…
"An interesting and practical approach to the basics. I think I feel a little inspired to go for something practical and basic myself today" mused Zelretch before turning away and motioning for Shirou to observe with a smirk "though I think that my bace level might be a little higher."
With a simple wave of his hand a sword shaped mystic code commonly known as an azoth dagger appeared in a kaleidoscope of colors and fell into the waiting vampires hands. With a flourish the elderly man twirled the knife once checking for any imperfections with a practiced eye.
"It always feels nice to immediately have anything I need for my experiments with a simple wave of the hand" mused Zelretch with a gentle fondness in his voice before turning to Shirou with an amused smirk "here, I'll even let you have this one as an early bonus payment considering your little financial situation."
"Was that it?" asked Shirou as he accepted the dagger in confusion "for all that drama I was kind of expecting something a little less lame."
Shirou was willing to admit to himself that having witnessed the varied powers and abilities of servants had possibly skewed his perceptions a bit on the awesomeness scale for magecraft. That didn't mean he was going to lower the standards of his scale just for the new boss. Pulling a random sword out of thin air? That might have qualified for a four out of ten if he had at least managed a noble phantasm.
"Not impressive you say?" questioned Zelretch with a single eye brow raised "I just used a multi-directional refraction phenomenon to shift the history of the entire world and you act as if thats just some common magus parlor trick like projection and reinforcement."
"Multi-directional refraction…" pondered Shirou as his eyes scrunched up in thought "…isn't that a technique learned by trying to kill swallows?"
"…Why yes, yes it is…" admitted Zelretch stiffly before snapping his fingers.
In front of the duo a large mind numbing portal formed in a kaleidoscope of colors that clawed at the soul and would shatter any one of a weak constitution. Naturally, Zelretch who was use to looking at things that mortal minds ought not to was completely unaffected. Shirou who had already had his mind shattered by all of the worlds evils at the tender age of eight and had later laid eyes upon the primordial sword of rapture was himself fairly resistant to the unimaginable horrors that spewed into reality.
"Did you know that one of the greatest dangers of the second magic is drawing the attention of those who lurk between worlds" lectured Zelretch with an outstretched hand dramatically pointed towards the portal that led into the abyss.
Shirou Emiya stared into the abyss… and nothing stared back.
"…Ah, just wait a moment" said Zelretch as he awkwardly pulled out a small plastic toy robot from out of his pocket "sometimes they get a little lazy and you have to bait them out. I still don't understand it myself but they seem to have a taste for Japanese merchandise."
Zelretch tossed the toy up into the air and then proceeded to annihilate the innocent gunpla in a kaleidoscope of colors. With a howl of rage a very angry and very massive tentacled form crawled its way out of the gaping wound in the world with shocking speed and soon towered over even the stadiums.
Shirou Emiya who had read through various manga and comic books to study the types of monsters a hero of justice was expected to face had only one question.
"Is that a Nyarlathotep?"
The Crawling Chaos made a warbling scream of rage at Zelretch as its countless eyes burned in unholy fury. Tentacles with the raw power to crush humans with nothing more than a flick thrashed in the air preparing to strike their target. A mind numbing alien sensation permeated around the creature like an oily cloak awaiting to erode the minds of the weak willed.
And Shirou just so happened to have the misfortune of standing between the demon and its target.
"Well, at least things can't get any worse" muttered Shirou as he stared up at the monstrosity that looked like it could snap Berserker like a twig. Then, as if just to prove him wrong, another primordial horror popped into existence almost as large and at least twice as horrifying as the previous one.
Shirou's fingers started to twitch.
There really had to be some kind of a limit as to how far a low luck ranking could bend reality. The flabbergasted expression on Zelretch's face showed that he at the very least agreed with that sentiment as they both stared blankly at the two colossal demons.
"…At least things can't possibly get any worse now" said Shirou certain that the world could not possibly hate him that much. Yet to his dismay, another titanic soul devouring demon appeared in a miasma of dark colors that ate away at reality.
"…What are you doing" asked Zelretch with a morbid sense of horror creeping into his voice as he stared at the young man who was somehow assembling an army of demons in his office through nothing more than raw determination and a low luck ranking.
"I want to find out just how far this depravity goes" said Shirou with an unamused curiosity. Just how much could the world possibly hate him and what possible applications might that have? Perhaps he could weaponize that hatred… with his current level of luck it would obviously back fire, but MAD was still a perfectly valid tactic, right? And so with that thought in mind he continued to repeat his mantra to his bosses ever growing horror.
"At least things can't get any worse."
This level of bad luck was not natural and Shirou planned to get to the bottom of it even if it killed him.