Brand-Bound: Hallowed Be The Menu [Rivals-to-Lovers Slowburn Fantasy Romance]

He can fix her. (But she can make him so much worse.)  Rank. Class. Purpose. All of creation is bound by the divine dictates of the glorious System Interface of the Most Holy Menu.  A stench of heresy wafts over the pilgrimage stations! Jelena is hunting for holy relics to pawn, even prying them from the hands of murdered priests. Calaf of Riverglen, sewer-grate guard and aspiring Paladin, vows to bring the apostate to justice for the good of the church Calaf pursues his quarry through hot spring groves, forests, and dungeons. As he learns more about this heretic's past, the pair unexpectedly find themselves fighting together through rebellion, inquisition, and a rising tide of undead. The hero's faith in the Holy Menu is unshakable, while the villainess long ago lost all faith. Who will warm up to the other first? Can Calaf fix her? Or will Jelena make him so much worse? [Updates: Wednesdays and Saturdays!) What to expect:     + Satirical LitRPG Shenanigans.    + Slow Burn Enemy-to-Lovers Rivalrymance morphing into proper long-term battle couple. No harem or love triangle. Yes occasionally-steamy romantasy and slow-building fantasy romance.     + 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: of 'fake tourist trap', 'gauntlet of traps' and 'endurance test' varieties.  ARCS: Volume One: Hallowed Be the Menu (Posted: April 2024-February 2025)      - Synopsis: 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. The pilgrimage path is perilous, and as he pursues the fiend he finds his perspective changing (and his quarry to be surprisingly hot). Can he maintain a Paladin-aspirant's sense of chivalry and right when calls for crusading suddenly feel wrong, and being with his fated rival suddenly feels so, so right?  Part One: The Many Riddles of Turandot (April Writeathon 2024 successful entry! April 2024 - October 2024) Part Two: Min-Max Crusaders (November Writeathon 2024 Successful Entry! Oct-Nov 2024) Part Three: An R.E.M Soliloquy (November 2024-February 2025)       Volume II: Heist of Many Centuries (February 2025 - Ongoing)      - Synopsis: Following a spoilerific change to the status quo, our hero continues to forge his own path. This path happens to be in close proximity to the dashing relic thief he's spent all last pilgrimage season trying to apprehend. A chance discovery during a certain someone's latest heist leads to revelations regarding the founding years of the Church of the Menu and the life and times of the Ancient Heroes of Yore. Dire revelations force the pair and their budding posse of outlaw allies to assemble for The Heist of Multiple Centuries... directly at the fossilized, demonic corpse at the center of church power!  Part Four: (Spoiler Title!) (February 2025 - March 2025) Part Five: New, Old Testament (April 2025 Writeathon entry!)  Part Six: High Society (May 2025 - Ongoing)  ... and more! [Participant in the April, November 2024, and April 2025 Writeathon!] [Cover courtesy, as always, of GetCovers]