The walk to the guild took eight minutes from the inn.
This morning it took twenty-three.
---
The first incident was at the bakery.
A girl of about twenty came out with a bag of bread just as they were passing by. She saw Kai. She smiled — the automatic kind of smile people give when someone has a good face and there's no reason not to smile.
The temperature dropped two degrees.
Serah positioned herself between the girl and Kai with the most natural step in the world, as if she'd decided to change sides of the sidewalk at that exact moment.
The girl saw Serah up close.
She urgently remembered she had things to do in the other direction.
Kai saw all of it.
He said nothing.
---
The second incident was at the market.
Three women at a fabric stall. One of them — the one with red hair — looked at Kai as they passed and said something to her friends in a low voice.
Serah's silver markings glowed.
"Serah."
"What?"
"Nothing."
Serah looked straight ahead.
The markings kept glowing, but she didn't transform.
---
The third one was at the central plaza.
An A-rank hunter was walking in the opposite direction and looked at Kai with interest — it seemed she recognized him from the stories she'd heard at the guild, as a future fighter of unknown caliber.
Serah transformed.
And that was enough for the hunter to see what she was seeing, process what it meant, and find urgent reasons to be on another continent.
Serah returned to human form.
Kai looked at her.
"Was that necessary?"
"Yes."
"She was a hunter evaluating a fighter."
"She was looking at you."
"She wanted to fight me."
"She wanted to mate with you."
Kai decided it wasn't worth the energy to argue.
He kept walking.
And let out a small, carefree laugh at the situation.
---
[GarcíaFTW: SERAH TRANSFORMED OVER A HUNTER WHO LOOKED AT HIM]
[NocheEterna99: Kai was laughing. You could see it on his face for half a second.]
[StreamerHunter: we've been walking for 23 minutes to cover an 8-minute distance. Serah is a traffic hazard.]
[xSorinx: the A-rank hunter saw Serah and calculated that her life was worth more than her curiosity.]
---
Aldric saw them walk in together and took a second to process the second part.
In the four days Kai had been registered at the guild, Serah had always waited outside. At the door, in the street, on the corner — never inside.
Now she positioned herself behind Kai with her arms crossed, staring at every guild staff member with terrifying seriousness.
The guild staff found urgent things to attend to in other parts of town.
"Is something going on?" asked Aldric, watching Serah carefully.
"No," said Kai.
Aldric decided to accept that answer.
"Good. Because I have something that needs attention." He pulled out a folder. "Early this morning, something appeared over the city."
"What kind of something?"
Aldric paused.
"A floating dungeon."
---
[NocheEterna99: FLOATING DUNGEON]
[GarcíaFTW: that doesn't sound normal even for this world]
[StreamerHunter: Kai has an 'interesting' face. That means he's going to accept the quest.]
---
"No one knows what's inside," said Aldric. "We have no record of this type of structure. The more experienced hunters prefer not to take risks until they have more information." He paused. "You like doing things other people consider stupid."
"Do they pay well?"
"Honestly, since we don't know what it is or why it appeared, we're leaving it to discretion."
"So there's no pay?"
"No, not really."
Kai thought about the eight impossible quests on the list.
Then he thought about a dungeon no one knew anything about.
"I'll take it," he said.
Aldric nodded and closed the folder with the specific relief of someone who had just stopped being responsible for something.
"Where is it?" asked Kai.
Aldric walked with him to the guild door. He stopped at the threshold — far enough from Kai that Serah wouldn't look at him with the intent to eat him.
Kai looked up.
The dungeon floated two hundred meters above the central plaza. A dark stone structure the size of a medium building, with a crack in its lower section from which a waterfall cascaded down, turning into a suspended stream that dissolved into mist before hitting the ground.
"How convenient," said Kai.
---
[GarcíaFTW: IT'S IN THE AIR. TWO HUNDRED METERS.]
[NocheEterna99: 'how convenient' — Kai is already calculating how to get up there]
[StreamerHunter: he has no wings. No magic. How is he going to get up there?]
[Current viewers: 18,000]
---
Kai measured the distance.
Two hundred meters.
The entrance crack was visible — an opening about three meters wide, with the waterfall falling from its left edge.
'Three jumps with momentum.'
'First from the roof of the tallest building in the plaza.'
'Second from the floating stream if it holds weight.'
'Third straight to the crack.'
He calculated the angle.
'It'll work.'
He started walking toward the tallest building in the plaza.
The pressure arrived before he took the third step.
A hand. On his shoulder. Firm.
Kai stopped.
He turned.
Serah was looking at him with ice crystals forming in the air around her.
"Where are you going?" she said.
Kai looked at her.
For a reason not completely logical but definitely present, he decided this wasn't the time to answer that directly.
"It's obvious you're coming with me," he said. "It'll be more fun."
Serah's expression didn't change.
Kai extended his hand.
"Coming?"
Three seconds of silence.
Then Serah took his hand.
---
Kai pushed off from the ground, using a jumping technique with hip rotation — all his strength concentrated in his legs — and landed on the roof of the tallest building in the plaza four seconds later, with Serah in his arms.
The chat took two seconds to react.
---
[GarcíaFTW: HE JUMPED TO THE ROOF FROM THE GROUND]
[NocheEterna99: he took Serah's hand to hold her in his arms. HE TOOK HER HAND.]
[StreamerHunter: Aldric is still at the guild door looking up with a 'not my problem anymore' face]
[xSorinx: two hundred meters. With martial arts. I'm watching this live and I don't believe it.]