The Breaking Point
"What the actual, unregulated fuck is going on here?!" Filoska shrieked, her aristocratic patience finally hitting absolute zero.
She violently stomped her expensive high-heeled shoe directly into the mountain dirt, glaring at all three of the billionaire men with pure, unfiltered, homicidal rage.
"I literally just got brutally assassinated by that unhinged federal tax officer back in Seistain! My premium keratin hair treatment is currently being utterly destroyed by this disgusting, un-air-conditioned medieval humidity! And now I am forced to stand in unpaved dirt on the side of a fucking mountain, listening to three grown billionaires argue about a hypothetical dragon-scale start-up?!" Filoska screamed at the top of her lungs, pointing aggressively toward the dense tree line ahead of them. "I do not give a single shit about your weird, primitive business ventures! Just stop your fucking shit right now, shut your goddamn mouths, and let's walk before I lose my mind!"
Terrified by her sudden, explosive meltdown, the three powerful corporate executives immediately shut up, fell into a single-file line like scolded schoolchildren, and started marching blindly through the thick, uncharted jungle.
The Narrator's Measurement (Narrator's POV)
The group aggressively marched through the highly unlandscaped, mosquito-infested mountain forest for exactly 500 meters until they suddenly stopped in their tracks.
Peering through the thick jungle leaves into a small clearing right in front of them, they saw the source of the noise. A group of female adventurers, dressed in cheap, heavily damaged leather armor, were backed up against a rocky cliff.
Now, pause. Let's just stop the story right here for a second.
I know exactly what you are thinking. You guys are probably sitting there right now, adjusting your glasses, thinking, "Um, excuse me, Mr. Narrator? How the fuck do you know they walked exactly 500 meters? That is oddly specific for an uncharted, magical jungle."
Well, let me tell you something: it is absolutely none of your fucking concern. But, if you are such a massive, insufferable nerd that you just have to know the deep, profound lore of how I got the exact mathematical distance?
It is because I literally carried a fucking yellow measuring tape with me. Yes. I walked right behind these four complaining billionaires in the mud, aggressively unrolling a massive hardware-store tape measure through the bushes step-by-step just for you guys. You're welcome.
Anyway, let's get back to the plot. Our corporate executives are finally about to make their first actual contact with the locals of this world.
The Retro-Tracker and the Cliché
Before the group could take another step through the dense, mosquito-infested bushes, Salesh paused, aggressively rubbing his pollen-covered nose. He looked at Malesh with genuine confusion.
"Wait a minute, Malesh," Salesh asked, his voice highly skeptical. "How the hell did you specifically know that the dragon was exactly one and a half kilometers away from us?"
Malesh let out a heavy, deeply exhausted sigh. He slowly turned around, looking at Salesh with absolute corporate disdain.
"Okay, Salesh. I now see that on top of having a highly pathetic immune system, you are also completely blind," Malesh stated flatly. "The biological fart-launcher that Kniya magically materialized had a brass-fitted, retro-mechanical distance tracking gauge bolted directly to the side of the barrel. I literally just read the analog dial before he threw it in the bushes. I never knew you were such an absolute idiot. Now, if the interrogation is over, let's head down to that village to officially skin the dragon."
But before they could begin their descent down the mountain, the loud, terrified screams of women echoed through the trees.
The executives immediately stopped talking. Peering through the thick jungle leaves into the clearing, they saw the source of the noise.
Standing right in front of them was an absolute nightmare. It was a towering, highly muscular, dark green monster wielding a massive wooden club.
Malesh immediately pointed a finger at the clearing, a spark of recognition flashing in his eyes.
"Kniya, look at this exact scene," Malesh whispered, completely ignoring the imminent danger. "It is the exact same scenario from every single trashy reincarnation novel we have ever read. A group of female adventurers is about to get brutally killed by a monster, and then the overpowered hero dramatically arrives at the last second to save them."
Kniya aggressively popped his mint gum, rolling his eyes in utter boredom.
"Yeah, Malesh, I see it. It is so incredibly boring and highly cliché," Kniya groaned, crossing his arms. "That exact scenario happened in my own novel multiple times. It is so common that it happens in literally every other novel we have ever read. I think we should do something completely different."
The Pacifist Route
"Different how?" Salesh asked nervously.
"We should not save them," Kniya stated with a chaotic, devious smirk. "First of all, uniqueness is my core brand strategy. And secondly, I want to observe this situation from a completely different perspective. What actually happens when no one steps in to help them? I want to see the unedited reaction of the monster. Will the plot armor magically save them? Will the author himself physically descend from the sky to save the women? Let's just sit in the bushes and watch the narrative collapse."
Filoska's jaw dropped in absolute, unfiltered horror.
"Are you out of your fucking minds?!" Filoska shrieked in a harsh whisper, violently grabbing Kniya by the shoulder. "You guys don't have even a single shred of humanity inside your bodies! How can you just stand there and watch a monster brutally attack those innocent girls?!"
"Well, Filoska, if your humanity is currently overflowing, go out there and save them yourself," Kniya laughed coldly, swatting her hand away. "We are absolutely not going to do that. In fact, our refusal to engage in violence proves that we do have humanity! We are practically peace-bringers! We are resting here like peaceful saints, right Malesh?"
"Exactly," Malesh nodded solemnly. "We are pacifists."
Salesh completely lost his mind, aggressively waving his hands at the two billionaires.
"What the actual fuck are you two thinking, Kniya and Malesh?!" Salesh yelled, completely abandoning his indoor voice. "Filoska is right! This is literally not morally acceptable! You cannot just watch someone get murdered right in front of us while doing absolutely nothing to stop it!"
Kniya sighed, scratching the back of his neck like he was dealing with annoying shareholders.
"I genuinely don't give a fuck, Salesh," Kniya replied coldly. "If they have to die, it is not one of my personal concerns. If they are getting cornered by a slow, useless green monster, why are they even acting as adventurers in the first place? It is a massive skill issue."
The Consequences of Misogyny
Malesh calmly adjusted his dragon-themed tie, nodding in complete agreement with Kniya.
"Logically speaking, Kniya makes a highly valid point," Malesh added, his voice dropping into a flat, highly controversial tone. "They shouldn't be out in the woods fighting monsters. They should be back at their homes, safely cooking."
WHAM!
Without a single moment of hesitation, Filoska spun around and delivered a devastating, super-powerful kick with her expensive high-heeled shoe directly into Malesh's stomach.
Malesh violently coughed, doubling over in the dirt as the air was entirely forced out of his lungs. Kniya instantly took a step back, terrified of Filoska's sudden martial arts skills.
"What the fuck, Filoska?!" Malesh gasped, clutching his stomach but aggressively pointing a finger up at her. "Why did you kick me?! I am openly a misogynist! Someone has to talk from this specific, terrible perspective in the story, and if I won't do it, who will?! It is a necessary demographic! They should be at home!"
WHAM!
Filoska didn't say a single word. She just instantly delivered a second, even more catastrophic kick directly to Malesh's shin, sending the billionaire crashing face-first into the medieval dirt.
The Cinematic Experience
Malesh groaned heavily, his face muffled by the primitive dirt. He slowly pushed himself up off the ground, furiously spitting a mouthful of mud out of his mouth.
"Okay, first of all, that was highly unprofessional workplace assault," Malesh wheezed, clutching his bruised ribs as he aggressively dusted off his pristine white shirt. "I was simply analyzing the socioeconomic roles of this primitive era! But fine. If you want to manually handle the HR complaints yourself, be my guest. I am taking a mandatory lunch break."
With that, Malesh stiffly stood up, completely ignoring Filoska's furious glare, and limped over to where Kniya was sitting.
Sitting entirely relaxed in his dirt-covered, highly expensive tailored suit, Kniya simply closed his eyes and tapped into his newfound power of imagination-to-creation. With a soft, magical pop, four massive, warm buckets of freshly buttered popcorn magically materialized out of thin air directly into his hands.
Kniya casually handed one bucket to Filoska in her ruined high-end corporate skirt, shoved another into Salesh's shivering hands, and handed the third to Malesh.
Without a single care in the world, Kniya and Malesh calmly sat down cross-legged on the forest dirt. Malesh carefully adjusted his pristine white shirt and dragon-themed silk tie so they wouldn't get wrinkled, and both billionaires began aggressively eating popcorn while watching the giant green monster approach the terrified women.
Filoska and Salesh stood behind them, staring down at the popcorn buckets in their hands with absolute, soul-crushing disbelief.
"You absolute, irredeemable sociopaths!" Filoska shrieked, her aristocratic composure completely shattering. In a fit of pure rage, she violently hurled her entire bucket of popcorn directly at the back of Kniya's head. "How the actual fuck can you be this completely ruthless?! We are watching a literal massacre about to happen, and you are treating it like a premium theatre movie!"
Salesh was equally horrified. He aggressively threw his bucket right into Malesh's face, showering the CEO in hot butter.
"Filoska is totally right!" Salesh yelled, pulling at his casual jacket in pure panic. "I genuinely did not expect you two to be this kind of unhinged animal! You are literally lacking the basic psychological hardware required for human empathy!"
Malesh didn't even flinch. He slowly wiped a piece of buttered popcorn off his cheek and looked back at them with deadpan annoyance.
"Logically speaking, if you did not want to consume the allocated rations, you should have just told us in the first place," Malesh stated flatly. "You have completely wasted perfectly good food assets. You should never waste food."