The road northeast was straight, flat, and completely boring.
Kai had decided this in the first twenty minutes.
By forty, he'd confirmed it.
By an hour and fifteen, he was evaluating whether walking faster would make any statistical difference to the level of interest along the route.
Conclusion: no.
"Exercise is entertaining," he said, looking at the road that remained just as straight and flat as it had an hour ago.
"But it seems like in this world, every place is as far away from the next as possible."
Serah walked beside him with her usual stride.
"If you want," she said, "I can carry you."
"Not necessary."
"We'd arrive in ten minutes."
"I can walk."
"I didn't say you couldn't." Serah looked at him. "I said I can carry you."
Kai looked back at her.
"How exactly?"
Serah didn't answer with words.
She stopped on the road, stepped two paces to the side, and transformed.
Her Primordial wolf form in all its splendor.
She crouched down on the road.
Low enough for Kai to climb on.
She looked at him over her shoulder with those ice-cold eyes.
Kai looked at her.
Looked at the straight road still stretching toward the horizon.
Looked at Serah again.
"Alright," he said.
---
[GarcíaFTW: SERAH OFFERED HERSELF AS TRANSPORT]
[NocheEterna99: AND KAI ACCEPTED]
[xSorinx: an SSS crouching on a dirt road so a rankless human can climb on. This is the world now.]
---
The fur was exactly what it looked like from the outside — deep black, dense, soft.
Kai settled between Serah's shoulders and processed the tactile information with the same attention he gave any new surface.
"It's very comfortable," he said.
Serah's ears moved slightly.
"And the fur is..." Kai ran a hand along her back, evaluating. "Surprisingly soft for something that can split stone."
The silver markings beneath the fur pulsed.
Kai continued the motion, running his hand from the back toward the flank, toward the front of the body where the structure shifted from propulsion muscle to control muscle.
Serah went completely still.
"When..." her voice came out different — lower, "are we going to mate?"
Kai kept stroking the fur absently.
"Soon," he said. "Maybe after finishing this quest."
---
What followed took Kai by surprise.
Serah launched forward with an acceleration that made the dirt road vanish beneath her paws in blurry streaks and left Kai with exactly 0.3 seconds to decide between falling off and holding on.
He chose holding on, obviously.
Both hands in the fur of her neck, body pressed to her back, the wind making speech physically impossible and clear thinking requiring active concentration.
---
[GarcíaFTW: KAI SAID "SOON" AND SERAH TOOK OFF]
[NocheEterna99: THAT WAS HER MOTIVATION. THAT PHRASE. THAT WAS ALL SHE NEEDED.]
[StreamerHunter: Kai looks like someone who just discovered a very specific exploit]
[xSorinx: the hour-long journey is being covered in maybe less than... EIGHT MINUTES.]
---
They arrived in eight minutes.
Serah stopped at the tree line with the same abruptness. Kai took a second to confirm the world had stopped moving.
He climbed down.
Looked at Serah, who was returning to human form with her usual rhythm.
"That worked well," Kai said.
"Yes," Serah said, with her usual neutrality.
"I expect you to keep your word."
"Next time, warn me before accelerating."
"Next time, don't let go."
Kai considered this valid tactical criticism and looked toward the village.
---
The village was called Mirfeld, according to the quest sheet.
What the sheet didn't mention was that Mirfeld looked completely normal.
More than normal.
Wood and stone houses in good condition. Clean streets.
A small but orderly market.
And in the center of the village, where there would normally be a fountain or an administrative building, there was something that made Kai stop completely.
A Ferris wheel.
A Ferris wheel.
The kind Kai had seen at summer fairs, with the colorful cabins and the lights and the metal arms holding the painted gondolas.
Beside it, a booth with triangular pennants in red and yellow.
Further on, what appeared to be a carousel — not of carved medieval wood but of metal and bright paint with horses spinning to music that Kai recognized before he could name where he knew it from.
"What is this?" Kai said.
"A village," Serah said.
"No. This." He pointed at the Ferris wheel. "This shouldn't be in Aethon."
Serah looked at him. Looked at the wheel. Back to Kai.
"You know it?"
"From my world." Kai examined the structure from a distance.
"Exactly the same. Not similar. The same."
---
[NocheEterna99: KAI RECOGNIZED THE FERRIS WHEEL]
[GarcíaFTW: it's from the real world. IT'S IN AETHON.]
[StreamerHunter: the mage who "saved" the village brought things from Kai's world. This is very suspicious.]
[xSorinx: Serah is looking at the village with an analysis face.]
---
The second thing Kai noticed was that there were no men.
Not in the market.
Not in the streets.
Not at the booths or in the doorways of the houses or in any of the places where there would normally be a mix of people.
Only women.
Of different ages and species, different types, all with that appearance.
Serah noticed it at the same time.
Her silver markings, which had returned to their steady rhythm since their arrival, began to pulse slightly faster.
She didn't show it on her face.
But Kai had learned to read the markings.
"Interesting," Kai said with an intrigued look.
"Very," said Serah, in a completely different tone.
---
The booth closest to the village entrance sold what appeared to be preserves and spices.
The woman behind the counter was young, brown-haired, with a bright smile.
She saw Kai.
Smiled.
Saw Serah.
The smile didn't exactly disappear — it recalibrated.
"Welcome to Mirfeld," she said, addressing mainly Kai. "How can I help you?"
Kai took out the quest sheet and placed it on the counter.
The woman read it.
Her expression changed — not to hostility, but to something more like genuine confusion mixed with something that might be loyalty.
"This is a mistake," she said.
"Lord Jameson is no threat. He arrived here when all the men of the village abandoned us to go seek a 'better future.'" She made air quotes with her fingers — the same universal gesture Kai recognized from his world.
"They never came back. Lord Jameson stayed. He helped us rebuild. Organize ourselves."
"Where can we find him?" Kai asked.
The woman opened her mouth.
"Thank you."
It wasn't Kai's voice.
Serah had placed her hand on the quest sheet — gently, with a pressure that wasn't a threat but clearly communicated that the conversation was over — and looked at the woman with her usual neutral expression.
"We'll find him on our own."
She took Kai's hand.
And before the woman or Kai could process the next step, Serah was already moving through the market stalls with the precision of someone following an invisible trail — dodging the women in her path without contact, turning at angles that didn't seem logical from the outside.
---
[GarcíaFTW: SERAH INTERRUPTED THE CONVERSATION AND TOOK KAI'S HAND]
[NocheEterna99: she was using her sense of smell to find the only man in the village]
[StreamerHunter: "we'll find him on our own" — Serah in territorial predator mode.]
[xSorinx: the woman at the booth watching Serah lead Kai away by the hand. Processing.]
---
The only man in Mirfeld besides Kai lived in a two-story house on the northern edge of the village.
Bigger than the others.
Built with materials that didn't exactly match the style of Aethon — the proportions were slightly different, the type of wood treated in a way Kai recognized before he could name it.
They stopped in front of the door.
It was a solid door.
Dark wood.
With a metal knocker shaped like something that was clearly a modern doorknob painted to look hand-forged.
Kai looked at it.
"Do we knock?" he said.
He thought about it for exactly one second.
"Nah."
Kai's fist struck the door with enough force that the entire structure gave way inward — it didn't open, it went through.
The door came off the frame, crossed the threshold, and landed on the interior floor of the house.
The frame remained intact.
The wall around the frame too.
Just the door.
---
From inside the house, after a second of silence, a man emerged.
Apparent forties.
Dark hair with some gray at the temples.
Average build, not a fighter's.
Blue cloth robe of the kind Kai had seen in his world in home clothing stores. Slippers.
He looked at the door on the floor.
Looked at the empty frame.
Looked at Kai.
Then at Serah.
Back to Kai.
He had the expression of someone who was in the middle of something completely different when this happened and still hasn't finished the mental transition.
Kai looked at him.
"Knock knock," he said.
---
[GarcíaFTW: "KNOCK KNOCK" AFTER BREAKING THE DOOR DOWN]
[NocheEterna99: HAHAHAHA]
[StreamerHunter: KAI SAID KNOCK KNOCK. AFTER PUNCHING THROUGH A DOOR.]
[xSorinx: the man is in a robe and slippers. This is the lethal magic mage from the quest.]
[Deral_Bleattler: "knock knock" with the door on the floor is the peak of human comedy]
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