From the rooftop, the floating stream was eighty meters away.
Kai calculated the second jump, adjusted the angle, and leaped.
He landed on the floating stream — which did hold his weight, barely — with the water moving under his feet like an unstable surface, and used the momentum for the third push straight toward the entrance crack.
He landed perfectly, still holding Serah in his arms, and took in the place.
The dungeon's crack was complete darkness from the outside.
"Serah…"
"Yes?"
"You can get down now…"
"Is it necessary? Your body heat is—"
"When we're done with this… you can sniff me as much as you want."
"Really?"
Serah got down from Kai's arms and looked at the dungeon without interest, but wanting to tear through it in one go.
"Ready?" asked Kai.
Serah looked into the darkness.
"This dungeon will be simple for an SSS entity," she said.
They entered.
---
The first thing that happened was that the darkness disappeared.
The second thing was that a light appeared — warm, golden, the kind that has no visible source but illuminates everything evenly.
The third thing was a voice.
It wasn't a normal dungeon voice — deep, threatening, supernatural.
It was high-pitched, enthusiastic, with the specific rhythm of someone who'd been waiting too long for someone to arrive.
"WELCOME to your FIRST OFFICIAL EVENT as a streamer in this world!!! Are you ready for your possible death????"
Kai looked at Serah.
Serah looked at the ceiling, where the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
"This dungeon's system detects two participants! One unranked human and one primordial SSS entity! A NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN combination! The audience from your world is watching! Collective adrenaline levels are HISTORIC!"
---
[NocheEterna99: WHAT VOICE IS THAT]
[GarcíaFTW: SOUNDS LIKE A GAME SHOW HOST]
[StreamerHunter: viewers: 312,000. WE TRIPLED IN 30 SECONDS.]
[xSorinx: 'possible death' — he said that way too enthusiastically]
[Current viewers: 312,441]
[The streaming system records the biggest viewer jump in stream history.]
[The system is processing this.]
---
"EVENT ONE: The Figure Duel!"
A circular platform appeared in the center of the room. On it, two round cookies the size of a hand, golden, with figures engraved in the center — a claw on the left one, a Penrose triangle on the right one. Next to each, a thin metal needle.
"The rules are simple! Each participant must carve out their figure using only the needle, without breaking the figure's edge or cracking the cookie outside the marked line! Time limit: eight minutes! The winner may ask ANYTHING of the loser! The loser must comply!"
"Special condition: during this event, magical and superhuman physical abilities are temporarily limited to standard human level!"
Serah, without thinking, took what she thought was the easier one — or so she believed. She looked at the cookie.
The Penrose triangle figure wasn't even possible to replicate in a cookie.
She looked at the needle.
"This is trivial," she said.
Kai took his — a claw — and examined it.
'The trick is in the pressure.'
'Too much and it breaks. Too little and it doesn't advance.'
"The timer starts when you pick up the needle," he said.
"CORRECT! We begin in three, two, one…!"
---
Serah picked up the needle.
And the competitive spirit that the dungeon system had promised to activate did exactly what it promised.
Something in the room's atmosphere changed — a subtle but real pressure — and Serah looked at Kai with an expression she hadn't had before.
It wasn't evaluation.
It was competition.
"Whoever wins can ask anything of the other," Serah said, quietly, as if processing the concept in real time.
"Yes," said Kai, not taking his eyes off the cookie.
"Anything."
"Yes."
Serah looked at the cookie.
Then at Kai.
The silver markings glowed.
'She already knows what she's going to ask if she wins.'
Kai knew it too.
He began working on the claw with small, precise movements — the same focus he used to find the exact angle in a strike.
---
[GarcíaFTW: 'whoever wins can ask anything' — SERAH IS THINKING ABOUT IT]
[NocheEterna99: Kai knows it too. They both know what Serah is going to ask, and neither says it.]
[StreamerHunter: this is a cookie contest and it has more tension than the A-rank bear fight]
[xSorinx: viewers: 400,000. the whole world is watching a cookie contest.]
---
Serah's problem was immediate.
With her abilities limited to standard human level, the precision she'd taken for granted for so many years wasn't available. Her fingers — perfect for tearing steel, for summoning ice, for moving faster than sight — had zero experience in applying exactly the right pressure not to break a sugar cookie.
The needle went in too hard.
Her cookie with the Penrose triangle figure cracked in half.
Serah stared at it.
She tried more carefully. The needle slipped. Another compromised edge.
On the other side of the platform, Kai was advancing slowly but without mistakes — the claw's handle first, the curve after, calculating every millimeter.
Serah looked at her cookie.
Looked at Kai's.
The silver markings stopped glowing competitively and started glowing with something different.
Frustration.
Determination.
At six minutes, Serah's cookie had four cracks. The triangle figure was compromised but still intact in the center.
At six minutes and thirty seconds, Kai set down his half-finished claw — clean, without a single crack — on the platform.
And slid it toward Serah.
---
Serah looked at him.
"What are you doing?"
"Finish it."
"It's yours."
"I know."
Serah looked at the crack-free claw, halfway carved, perfectly executed up to that point.
"If I finish it, I win the event," she said.
"Yes."
"I can ask you anything."
"Yes."
Three seconds of silence.
"Why?"
Kai looked at her for the first time since the event began.
"Because you wanted to win," he said. "And it wasn't fair that the rules put you at a disadvantage in something you've never done before. And that figure was impossible to make."
Serah didn't respond.
She took the claw.
With the focus of someone learning something completely new — with a precision that no one who knew her would have associated with her in such a context — she finished the carving in ninety seconds.
Without breaking it.
"WINNER: SSS Entity — Serah!!! Prize in progress! The loser must fulfill the winner's request when she makes it effective!"
Serah placed the claw cookie on the platform.
She looked at it for a moment.
"I won't break it yet," she said.
"Why not?"
"Because I want to choose the right moment."
---
[GarcíaFTW: KAI GAVE HER HIS COOKIE SO SHE COULD WIN]
[NocheEterna99: 'I want to choose the right moment' — SERAH HAS A REQUEST IN MIND AND SHE'S IN NO HURRY]
[StreamerHunter: viewers: 520,000. HALF A MILLION. OVER A COOKIE CONTEST.]
[xSorinx: Kai gave her the win, and Serah is processing it as the most meaningful gesture anyone has made toward her in centuries. I can see it on her face.]
---
The next room was a long hallway with the following event at the far end.
Halfway down the hall, a box appeared.
It didn't fall from the ceiling. It didn't emerge from the wall. It was simply there, in the center of the path, as if it had always been.
[System — notification]
[Gift received: Physical object — Classification: UNKNOWN]
[Origin: Viewer GarcíaFTW + NocheEterna99 + StreamerHunter — collaboration of 847 viewers]
[The system registers it as: Surprise.]
Kai looked at the box.
"I don't like this."
---
[GarcíaFTW: DON'T OPEN IT]
[NocheEterna99: HE'S GOING TO OPEN IT]
[StreamerHunter: CHAT IS TESTING
LIMITS]
[Deral_Bleattler: who figured out you could send physical objects?]
---
He opened it.
Inside was fabric.
Several pieces.
The lingerie type — sexy — and the colors Kai recognized immediately because he'd seen that kind of thing in shop windows and advertisements in the world he came from, and which didn't exist in any form in this world.
He picked up one piece.
Examined it.
Put it back in the box.
"Okay," he said, in the tone of someone saying something when they'd rather say nothing. "Next room."
Serah took the box before Kai could close it.
She examined it with the same focus she'd applied to the cookie — methodical, without judgment, like an analysis.
"It's not armor," she said.
"Nope."
"It's not ceremonial."
"Nope."
"It doesn't improve mobility." She pulled out a piece and held it in the light. "The material is minimal. It doesn't cover enough surface to protect anything." Pause. "It doesn't have an obvious practical function."
"Nope."
Serah looked at him and sensed something unusual in Kai's body.
She sniffed him — not discreetly, directly, with the sensory capacity of a primordial she-wolf who can detect changes in people's chemical composition.
Her eyes fixed.
"Your breathing changed when you opened the box," she said.
"It's warm in here."
"It's not warm. Your heart rate changed too." She looked at the piece in her hand. Then at Kai. "It provoked that reaction."
"I'm not going to explain this."
"You don't need to explain it." Serah folded the piece carefully and put it back in the box. She closed it. "I already understand the function."
Kai looked at her.
Serah took the box and tucked it under her arm with the same naturalness with which someone stores a useful tool.
"For future use," she said.
---
[GarcíaFTW: LMAOOOOO]
[NocheEterna99: 'FOR FUTURE USE' — SERAH ANALYZED THE CLOTHING LIKE A SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT AND REACHED THE CORRECT CONCLUSION]
[StreamerHunter: Kai has the face of someone who knows exactly what situation he's just gotten himself into and can't do anything about it]
[xSorinx: The uncashed cookie. The clothes for future use. Serah is building an arsenal.]
[Deral_Bleattler: this is the best stream I've ever watched in my life and I just got here today]
[Current viewers: 587,000]
[The system notes that the viewer count is still rising.]
[The system notes that Kai still has a 'I'm not going to explain this' face.]
[The system considers that explaining it wouldn't have changed anything anyway.]