A week after planting the seed with Maeve, a notification pulsed softly in Leo's vision—not a quest, but a network alert.
[NETWORK UPDATE: New Node - "The Rising Crust." Status: Stabilizing.]
A quiet pride warmed him. It was working. But curiosity nagged at him. Was Maeve an exception? He'd heard whispers of another new café, one that had appeared seemingly overnight and was already drawing rave reviews for its technical perfection. "Kenji's Perfection." The name alone put him on edge.
He found it in a newly renovated part of the Quarter. The place was immaculate. Sleek, minimalist furniture, polished chrome, and perfect, shadowless lighting. It was beautiful in the way a showroom was beautiful. But as Leo stepped inside, the Hearth-Warming Aura within him recoiled. The air was magically clean, sterile. It felt like walking into a beautifully furnished, empty house.
A young man with a precisely trimmed beard and a spotless apron approached. Kenji. His smile was a perfect, calibrated curve.
"Welcome to Perfection," he said, his voice smooth and devoid of inflection. "What can we craft for you today?"
As Kenji spoke, Leo caught a flicker in his eyes. Not the warm parchment glow of his own System, but a cold, blue-white light, displaying lines of data. A Corporate Raider System, like Julian's, but different. It looked like a financial portfolio, all graphs and metrics.
"Surprise me," Leo said.
Kenji's smile didn't change. "Of course." He moved to his machine, a state-of-the-art corporate model. His movements were flawless, a perfect ballet of efficiency. There was no joy in it. No intention. Just execution.
While he worked, Kenji glanced at Leo. "You're from The Foundational Grind, aren't you? The one with the so-called sentimental ambiance."
"You could say that."
"I studied your model," Kenji said, his tone conversational, as if discussing engine specs. "Fascinating, but inefficient. All that emotional mana is a drain on consistency. I optimized it out."
Leo stared at him. "Optimized it out?"
Kenji finished the pour, presenting a latte with art so intricate it looked printed. "The System I use is a derivative. A more of a refined version. It showed me that customer emotional attachment is an unreliable variable. I focused the protocols purely on taste, texture, and visual appeal. The metrics are significantly better." He gestured to the busy café. "As you can see."
Leo took a sip. The coffee was, without a doubt, the most technically perfect he had ever tasted. The balance was impeccable, the temperature ideal. And it was utterly hollow. It was like consuming a high-resolution photograph of a meal. It left a metaphysical aftertaste of nothing.
This was it. This was the corruption. Kenji hadn't just received a seed; he had taken Arthur's core idea and surgically removed its heart. He'd turned a system built on connection into a machine for optimized consumption.
Leo set the cup down, the beautiful foam art undisturbed. "It's very… precise."
He walked out, the sterile air of Kenji's café clinging to him like a ghost. The chill he felt wasn't from competition. It was from witnessing a beautiful, perfect perversion of everything his grandfather had dreamed of.