When he stepped outside, fully fresh and ready to go, a plethora of senses and feelings, Clyde wasn’t sure how to describe them, struck the young man. Nature’s dominance only reigned in the city’s skies. Lost spirits were scattered and about, holding secrets, longing for purpose. The wind seemed to bend around and through the young man.

Feeling the spirit energy of every living thing felt weird. Hell, Clyde didn’t even know what spirit energy was at first—the system never mentioned it. Alice simply threw the term at him, leaving the young man to compare it to animes watched in the past and context clues. He did eventually ask her, knowing it’d be ridiculous to risk his life on a mere guess. Alice called it magic of the soul, essence.

When Clyde stopped in front of the maid café on Twentieth Street, he began to have second thoughts. This place couldn’t possibly ruin his reputation. No one here would call him a weeb, right? Well, too late to change the meeting place now, you goof, he thought.

Fuck it, living and breathing, one must try it once. He walked in and had no trouble locating Selkie. Just follow the staring eyes of both male and female to the entity dressed in a stunning red cheongsam. He noticed Dark sitting one table away, as he approached Selkie. He gave the edge lord just a brief frown. Whether he liked him or not, they fought together. He honestly didn’t hate the guy. Quite the opposite, though he hoped to get more serious moments from the guy, not the edgy act he put on.

Clyde didn’t consider chuuni much of a condition, but a faze. Not that he wanted to spend anytime judging the young man. They fought and bled together. Good enough for him.

“Took you long enough,” Selkie said when he sat down. Clyde started to ask Dark to join them, but Selkie interjected. “He’s watching and maintaining a sound barrier.”

Clyde nodded. Sometimes he forgot how strong the chuuni was—and before earning his powerup, nearly lost. He never flaunted that PVP in his face as a gesture of respect. Not that he’d let the chuuni know.

“Let’s just get this talk over with,” Selkie continued. “We’re leaving the city afterwards.”

“Really?” Clyde said. “Just when I was starting to tolerate the edge lord a little. And I could use Charley’s help to save our world. If he even cares about going back.”

“He won’t go back,” Selkie said, “but he does care. That being said, his destiny lies elsewhere. If he remains in this city and another one of your type comes in, the balance could be thrown out of whack.”

“Any particular reason why you or Mortem thought it was a good idea to hide this?” Clyde said, folding his arms. “I mean doomsday by power-level cliché.”

Selkie sighed.

“Telling you is kind of against the rules. Now stay focused and stop interrupting. I’m going to tell you what I can. You dig up the rest on your own.”

“You better not dump exposition on me,” Clyde muttered, gaining the entity’s glare. She continued anyway.

“This world, an anime in your eyes, was created by a powerful deity whose name I cannot speak. In fact, some say that particular watcher peeked into the future, saw anime, then created the dimension while earth was being constructed by some other deity. Satovia is like earth but is not. The myth and legends discarded in your world are actually real. They’re dormant in your world but breathe here. Although most are a lot more civil than how you humans depicted them.

Clyde this world is real, a planet just like the earth. The reason you become anime is due to the rules of the dimension. The non-clash clause. The prompts and the stats you see are there to assist you. The Stone. You’ve been adjusting to the city and taking on the demon lord’s army. Kill him and this territory becomes yours.”

“That’s not what I’m here for,” Clyde said. “The demon lord’s army is a helpful grind, but dangerous as fuck to the city. Nobody’s able to go out at night.”

“Kill the demon lords, go on adventures, find and solve mysteries, the choice is yours,” Selkie said. “You know your endgame. You know whom you must face.”

Clyde gave her a Toru-style blank stare. Abruptly, he noticed Dark shuffling a deck of cards. The blue backs were very familiar.

“Hey Edge Lord, where’d you get those?” Clyde said.

Dark glared.

“Just cards of a card game. Have a problem with that too, normie?”

A man who knew anime tropes as much as Clyde was kind of far from normie, but he’d give the chuuni this. For now. It was kind of fun to mess with him.

“Obviously,” he said, “but I’ve been finding them everywhere, almost as if someone’s deliberating leaving them behind. I know these aren’t ordinary cards.”

Looks of alarm shot into the eyes of Selkie and Dark.

“Mind if I see your cards?” Selkie said.

“I’ve only found a few,” Clyde said, “and they all randomly spawned somewhere I could see them.”

“Spawning, no Clyde, fate,” Selkie said. “Only your soul can call these.”

The duo’s mouths went agape when Clyde revealed his collection. Dark nearly freaked out, though Selkie’s elbow to his gut calmed the chuuni down. “These cards are so incredibly…bloody impossibly rare. Did you make the contract?” she gave them back to Clyde.

“I’m not sure how,” Clyde said. “Some helpful system I’ve got.”

“Let’s do it right now,” she said. “Dark will teach you the game afterwards.”

Dark grimaced at that but life seemed to come back to him when he looked at the cards.

“Here? In front of all of these people?” Clyde said. “Look, you can make a dog wag its tail, but don’t toy with a man and his dignity.”

“Pfft, men. No one can see through my dimensional field,” Selkie said, “nor can they interact with it.”

“Will the small amount of cards do? I’m asking questions, so I don’t get fucked,” Clyde said.

“Make the contract with your deck leader, which I’m pretty sure is the sorceress. She’ll form the deck for you. Now are you going to do it or not?”

“A little too late to back down now,” Clyde said. “Not that I know any of this shit, mind you.”

She gave the young man pointers about making the commitment.

“Let us converse, you and I, my deck leader,” Clyde said, repeating the chant in the singsong voice that the green-haired entity ordered. He channeled MP into the cards. They reacted with an intense glow.

In a flicker of light, Clyde’s surroundings changed. Gone was the restaurant, replaced with a large library-like bedroom, cluttered with a mess of books. Even atop of the bed were books. Some floated in midair, some seemed glued to the wall. A bookworm’s dream.

Suddenly, a beautiful woman with long golden hair and matching eyes appeared in front of him, smiling.

“Welcome, love.”