He can fix her. (But she can make him so much worse.)  IN A WORLD...  where every man and beast receives a System Brand, dictating their rank, class, and role via the Divine and Immaculate Interface of the Most Holy Menu... SHE is an enterprising, apostate con-woman and relic-thieving super-criminal. One who has forsaken her Interface and operates unbranded, without access to the System.  HE is a young and pious spear-wielding sewer grate guard. Ever faithful to the Most Holy Church of the Menu, this Paladin-aspirant is tasked with apprehending the dangerous heretic after she ransacks a cathedral and makes off with priceless holy relics.   A series of fateful encounters along the church’s pilgrimage route cause the duo's paths to intersect in a series rife with adventure, action, and romance! His faith in the System and its Divine and Immaculate Menu Interface is absolute; she’s been through this whole spiel once before. But, as the pair grow closer, they find themselves turning from enemies to rivals, and maybe even to something more… What to expect:     + Satirical LitRPG Shenanigans.    + Slow Burn Enemy-to-Lovers Rivalrymance. No harem.     + A world fully built around and reverently adherent to the System: its level rankings, skills, classes, and sacred strictures of the Menu and its Most Holy Interface.     + Pithy, spiffy item descriptions and monster names. Dire-rats, dire-pigeons, and much dire-more.     + Unsubtle Trails in the Sky, Honkai: Star Rail, and Final Fantasy references (among others!).    + Dungeons (Coming Soon!). ARCS: Part One: The Many Riddles of Turandot (April Writathon 2024 successful entry! April 2024 - October 2024)      - Calaf, current rat-slaying sewer grate guard and aspiring Paladin-in-training, embarks on a quest to apprehend a cackling, heretical apostate who is out to murder priests, steal relics, and, no doubt, hates the very concepts of faith, freedom, and liberty themselves! Verily, no quarter shall be brokered with this vile and unrepentant villainess.  Part Two: Min-Max Crusaders (Oct-Nov 2024)      - Our brave hero Calaf embarks on a return journey to Riverglen. As the pilgrimage season winds down, new forms of dissidence rise out in the hinterlands. The newly-leveled Paladin-aspirant attempts to bolster his lagging faith in the Holy Menu and its Immaculate Interface by answering the crusader's call. But the long march of holy war may bring him back into contact with a fated rival while also straining his tenuous ties to the faith.  Part Three: Losing My Religion (Or: R.E.M Soliloquy)  (November 2024-Ongoing)      - Crestfallen Calaf wanders down the pilgrimage route, disillusioned with it all. His last vestiges of a Paladin's sense of virtue manage to prevent him from seeking sinful solace in a certain dashing relic thief before he can return to his hometown of Riverglen and seek answers to some faith-shaking questions that threaten the very integrity of the Most Holy Church of the Menu.  Part Four: (Spoiler Title!)  Part Five: Mal Lang Syne (Prewritten and waiting for the other arcs!) Part Six: High Society ... and more! [Participant in the November 2024 Writeathon!] [also a participant in the April 2024 Royal Road Writathon challenge!] [Cover courtesy, as always, of GetCovers]