Chapter 33: Divine Intervention, with a Kick

"This is not funny!" I yelled, pointing a trembling finger at the screen where the newly christened 'Lord Croissant' was trying to rally the village ducks to his cause. "You've created a continental security threat! With carbs!"

"I think you'll find you created him," Isao said, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. "I just added a little… spice."

I had to fix this. I couldn't dispatch a hero; the threat level was 'Absurdly Low but Thematically Concerning,' which didn't meet the criteria for divine intervention. I couldn't just erase him; that would be a gross misuse of power. I had to perform a delicate, remote system correction.

It was the divine equivalent of trying to perform brain surgery with chopsticks while someone tickles you. I had to dive deep into the world's code, find the corrupted skill, and patch it without causing the entire planet's reality to unravel.

For the next three hours, I worked in a frenzy of focused energy. My fingers flew across my console, lines of celestial code scrolling past my eyes. All the while, Isao provided a running commentary.

"Ooh, careful with that causality loop, Aka-chan. You almost gave a nearby squirrel the ability to bend time."

"Are you sure you want to re-route that much ambient hope into a scone recipe? The potential for a baked-goods-based cult is quite high."

"Fascinating. His despair-croissants are actually causing the local grandmothers to have existential crises about their knitting patterns. The philosophical implications are staggering."

Finally, with a last, desperate keystroke, I did it. I isolated the 'existential dread' component Isao had introduced and shunted it into a harmless subroutine.

On the screen, Lord Croissant suddenly paused mid-speech. He looked down at the baguette in his hand, a confused expression on his face. "On second thought," he said, "conquering the world seems like a lot of work. Does anyone just want to have a nice picnic?"

The village breathed a collective sigh of relief. The grandmothers cautiously emerged, their interest in his scone recipe renewed. The crisis was averted.

I slumped back in my chair, completely drained. I had fixed his mess.

Isao applauded slowly. "Bravo, Aka-chan. A masterful performance. You truly are the Head of Creative Problem Solving."

That was the last straw. All the frustration, all the stress from the last few hours, boiled over. I stood up, my eyes blazing with a divine light.

"Isao," I said, my voice dangerously calm.

"Yes, my dear?" he asked, a smug smile on his face.

"Get. Out."

"Now, Aka-chan, don't be like that—"

I didn't let him finish. I channeled all my remaining energy, not into a complex spell, but into a single, simple, immensely satisfying construct. A giant, glowing, ethereal boot materialized behind him.

His eyes went wide as he saw it. "You wouldn't."

"I would," I said.

The boot drew back and launched him forward with a tremendous THWUMP. He sailed, screaming in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, out of his chair, across my office, and straight through the dimensional wall, leaving a shimmering, Isao-shaped hole that slowly sealed itself shut.

I stood there, panting, in the sudden, blissful silence of my office. It was the most satisfying thing I had done all century.