The third room was smaller than the previous ones.
Dark stone walls, no windows, no decoration.
In the center, two low pedestals facing a panel on the wall that still showed nothing.
"ROOM THREE: Hunter's Memory!"
"The rules are simple! The panel will display a sequence of symbols for five seconds! You must replicate them in exact order on your pedestal! Every mistake has consequences! Special condition: no round limit — the event ends when one of you accumulates three failures!"
Kai looked at the blank panel.
Serah, beside him, was already analyzing the room with that wolf face that doesn't understand why humans complicate everything so much.
"What are consequences?" she asked.
"Great question! For each failure, the participant loses one article of clothing! If you run out of clothing before completing the event, you automatically lose!"
Absolute silence.
Serah looked at her own body like someone checking game inventory.
She counted mentally.
"That's irrelevant," she said with complete nonchalance. "I don't care about clothes."
Kai glanced sideways at her.
That's a potential problem… a very big one.
"I care about mine," he muttered.
"Then don't fail."
---
[GarcíaFTW: CLOTHING LOSS ON FAILURE. I ALREADY KNOW HOW THIS ENDS AND I'M PREPARING THE POPCORN]
[NocheEterna99: Serah said "irrelevant" with a face like "I literally don't understand the concept of shame"]
[StreamerHunter: Kai is already sweating and the sequence hasn't even started]
[xSorinx: viewers: 850,000 → 920,000 in 3 seconds. The algorithm knows exactly what we want]
---
The first sequence appeared.
Eight symbols.
Five seconds.
Panel off.
Kai closed his eyes half a second after it vanished.
Circle, diagonal line, three dots, square, spiral, cross, two parallel lines, inverted triangle.
Break it into two groups of four. Like dividing a kata into phases.
He replicated the sequence on the pedestal in twelve seconds.
[CORRECT]
Serah replicated hers in eight seconds.
[CORRECT]
Second. Ten symbols. Both correct.
Third. Twelve symbols.
Serah hesitated on the ninth.
[FAILURE — GARMENT REMOVED]
Serah's outer dress vanished in a flash.
Underneath remained only a simple black lingerie set absurdly well-fitted to her primordial wolf figure: narrow waist, hips sculpted by centuries of hunting, long toned legs.
The bra barely contained what was clearly a firm, natural D-cup, lifted by her straight warrior posture.
Serah looked at the vanished garment.
"Ah," she said, like she'd misplaced a key, and continued.
---
[GarcíaFTW: SERAH WAS LEFT IN BRA AND PANTIES AND SAID "AH." I'M DEAD]
[NocheEterna99: she literally doesn't care. At all. Absolutely nothing.]
[StreamerHunter: I'm more emotionally naked than she is]
[xSorinx: viewers: 1,050,000. Room three already broke a million with just one garment]
---
Fourth sequence. Fourteen symbols.
Kai mentally divided them into three groups before the panel went dark.
Group one: the first five form a spiral if you connect them. Group two: the middle four are variations of the same base symbol. Group three: the last five are the same as group one but in reverse order.
Replicated in nine seconds.
[CORRECT]
Serah observed her panel.
She started replicating from instinct — the ones she remembered first, then the rest.
The hunting instinct of a primordial wolf was extraordinary for movement patterns, scents, sounds.
For abstract sequences of symbols on a lit panel, it was exactly as useful as nothing.
Failed on the eleventh symbol.
[FAILURE — GARMENT REMOVED]
Second garment… her bra.
The bra vanished with a pop of light.
What remained was… too much.
Pale skin, silver markings glowing over soft yet powerful curves, firm and perfectly round breasts that moved with every deep breath of the wolf.
The stream's censor beam appeared immediately, covering exactly enough and nothing more, as if the system itself was sweating.
Serah looked down with the same face as always.
"Ah," she repeated.
Wait… wait a second.
She's a primordial wolf. 2,300 years.
Human form she took… when? How long ago?
First she lost the dress and I thought "it's just fabric, it's nothing."
But now… now the bra's gone too.
Look at that. Look how they move. Firm. Natural. She doesn't even need support and they're just there, perfect, like gravity is afraid of them.
Is that a D-cup? No… wait, definitely D.
Maybe even double D from certain angles.
How can an ancient entity have a body so… ridiculously proportioned?
Strong hunter shoulders, impossible waist, and then… that.
They rise and fall with every breath and the light beam can barely keep up.
I'm calculating the bounce.
I'm calculating the bounce, Kai.
I'm analyzing the size, shape, and elasticity of my primordial wolf companion's breasts like it's a memorization kata.
FOCUS, YOU IDIOT! IT'S A MEMORY GAME, NOT AN ANATOMY STUDY!
"Serah," Kai said, his voice a bit hoarser than usual.
"I'm fine."
"You're not using the right method."
"I'm memorizing."
"You're using instinct for something that has no instinct."
Kai stepped closer than necessary to his pedestal, trying his absolute best not to think about her… roses.
"Look. How do you memorize prey when you hunt?"
Serah looked at him with those ice-cold eyes that now seemed brighter.
"Movement, scent, sound. The displacement pattern."
"Exactly. Patterns. Not individual elements."
He pointed at the panel.
"The symbols also have patterns. But you have to look for them before they disappear."
---
[NocheEterna99: KAI IS EXPLAINING MEMORY THEORY WHILE TRYING NOT TO LOOK]
[GarcíaFTW: he connected prey hunting to symbol memorization… and to mental survival]
[StreamerHunter: "the middle is always transition" — this works for combat, for kata… and for not dying of spontaneous combustion]
[Deral_Bleattler: WHO PROGRAMMED THIS AND WHERE CAN I TELL THEM HOW MUCH I HATE THEM]
---
For Kai, there was no light beam.
Only unfiltered reality existed.
And his brain, which had decided to take a mental vacation.
Seventh sequence.
Twenty symbols.
Serah moved closer to him and leaned against his back to watch how he did it and learn from him.
"Serah, get off and go back to your zone. This is forbidden."
"I really don't think I heard the weird voice say that. I just want to learn from you."
A completely unnecessary movement, and Kai felt her warm nipples against his back. He was, or had been, a martial artist and could control himself… but this was a level of concentration he'd never handled before, and his male instincts overwhelmed him.
"Mr. Unknown Voice, this is forbidden, right??" The words could barely leave Kai's mouth.
"No, of course not."
"Oh, okay."
Slow.
And
Deliberate.
The light beam had to juggle.
Kai failed on the nineteenth.
[FAILURE — GARMENT REMOVED]
He lost his jacket.
He didn't even care.
Serah replicated her sequence perfectly, gave a small celebratory hop (unnecessary, provocative, lethal), and the light beam nearly collapsed.
And Kai… Well, mini Kai wanted out.
---
[NocheEterna99: SERAH DID THAT ON PURPOSE. I KNOW IT. I FEEL IT IN MY SOUL]
[GarcíaFTW: she found the game's only exploit and it's her own body]
[StreamerHunter: Kai has twenty-two years of martial discipline and Serah is melting it in real time]
[xSorinx: this is psychological warfare disguised as a memory game]
---
Eighth, ninth, tenth… both on a streak.
But every time Serah moved, even half an inch, Kai felt like he lost 10 IQ points.
Eleventh sequence.
Twenty-four symbols.
Serah leaned forward, resting her elbows on the pedestal.
Casual posture.
Body tilted.
Light beam doing its heroic work.
Kai reached the twenty-second symbol… and failed the twenty-third on one stupid mistake.
---
[System — Room Three Results]
[Participant 1 — Kai Reno: 3 failures. Remaining garments: jacket gone and dignity in flames.]
[Participant 2 — Serah: 2 failures. Remaining garments: the system prefers not to detail for its own mental health.]
[Room Winner: Serah — for consistency in final rounds and for being a weapon of mass destruction without even trying.]
"ROOM THREE COMPLETED!!! The winner is SSS Entity Serah due to consistency… and other obvious reasons!! Kai Reno accumulates TWO pending debts to the same person!! What bad luck… or good luck, depending on how you look at it!!"
Kai looked at the ceiling.
"Three… I didn't even notice when I lost the thir… Third," he said, voice flat.
Serah picked up the rematerialized garment from the floor and folded it calmly, as if she hadn't just destroyed an entire man's concentration.
"Two," she confirmed, and gave him a small smile, genuine and absolutely dangerous.
---
[NocheEterna99: TWO PENDING DEBTS. AND ONE OF THEM IS CLEARLY "COLLECT IN PRIVATE"]
[GarcíaFTW: the cookie AND now this. Serah has an arsenal of debts and a body that's the main weapon]
[StreamerHunter: Kai looks like he's calculating the total cost of the debts and doesn't like the numbers… or his own lack of self-control]
[xSorinx: viewers: 1,247,000. This is officially the most-watched event in interdimensional broadcast history. And no one can blame us.]
[The system notes that the stream crossed one million viewers during Room Three.]
[The system considers this the most-watched event… and the most dangerous for the mental health of male participants.]
"This is going to end badly for me."