The man in the robe looked at them for five full seconds.
At Kai.
At Serah.
At the door on the floor.
Back at Kai.
"Did you knock?" he finally said.
"Knock knock," Kai repeated.
The man processed this.
Looked at the empty frame where the door had been.
Then at Kai's knuckles.
"Well done," he said, in a calm tone.
"Frame intact. Just the door. That's control."
"Thank you."
"It wasn't a compliment." Pause. "Though it was, a little."
---
[GarcíaFTW: THE LETHAL MAGE IS IN A ROBE AND SLIPPERS EVALUATING KAI'S TECHNIQUE]
[NocheEterna99: "it wasn't a compliment. though it was, a little" — SOMEONE SAID EXACTLY THIS BEFORE ON THIS STREAM]
[StreamerHunter: the android from the dungeon said exactly the same thing. EXACTLY.]
[xSorinx: Kai noticed it too. I saw it on his face.]
---
Kai had noticed.
The man in the robe stepped aside from the threshold.
"Come in," he said. "I have coffee."
Kai looked at Serah.
Serah was watching the man with an expression of active analysis — not hostility, evaluation.
Her markings pulsed at the rhythm of suspicion and something else she couldn't describe.
Kai noticed and smiled.
"Coffee?" Kai said.
"The good stuff. Not the herbal concoction they call coffee in this world." The man was already walking inside.
"Real coffee. Beans. Ground this morning."
Kai entered.
---
The inside of the house was more disconcerting than the Ferris wheel.
Not because it was extravagant.
But because it was exactly like the home of someone who'd been living there for a while — apparently with company, since you could see clothing remnants scattered around parts of the house.
But also things from his world.
Bookshelf with books — some from Aethon, leather-bound, but others with the kind of smooth spine and printed typography that only existed in a world with industrial printing presses.
A table with two cups already set out, as if he'd known they were coming.
A worn armchair facing a cold fireplace.
And Kai could deduce only one thing from this.
Kai looked at him.
The man saw him looking.
"Ah," he said. "So you have one too."
The guy had his gaze on Serah but was thrown off by Kai's question and turned toward him.
"Excuse me... a what?"
Kai smiled indifferently while analyzing the entire interior of the house.
"You're a streamer... I remember when I arrived in this place, the system told me I was number 4-thousand-something."
"So you figured it out."
---
[NocheEterna99: HE HAS A SYSTEM]
[GarcíaFTW: HE'S ANOTHER TRANSMIGRATOR]
[StreamerHunter: "so you have one too" — KAI KNEW FROM THE MOMENT HE SAW HIM. KAI IS AN EXTREME ANALYST.]
[xSorinx: the cups were already set out. HE KNEW THEY WERE COMING. I'M SURE OF IT.]
[Pedro_Sierra_8748: That guy was looking at Serah. Seems like he has some issue with an SSS entity being here.]
---
They sat down.
Serah didn't sit.
She stood behind Kai's chair with her arms crossed — the same position she'd taken at the guild the day she first walked in.
Territorial.
Functional.
Completely deliberate.
The man looked at her for a moment and smiled, which caused something strange in Serah. Then at Kai.
"Impressive company," he said.
"Yes," Kai said.
"How long have you been here?"
"Sixteen days."
The man raised his eyebrows — the first genuinely surprised reaction he'd shown since appearing in the doorway.
"Sixteen days and you already have an SSS?" He looked at Serah. Back at Kai. "And you destroyed a floating dungeon?"
"Did you watch the stream?"
"No, but it seems one of my followers mentioned something in my stream. Apparently they passed through yours." The man picked up his cup. "You've reached high peaks of interdimensional viewers. Impossible to ignore." A pause. "I have eight hundred forty-two thousand followers."
Kai picked up his.
"How long have you been here?"
"Four years."
---
Silence.
Not awkward silence.
The silence of two people calibrating how much information to share and in what order.
"Jameson," the man said, extending his hand.
"Kai."
They shook hands.
"Why are you on the guild's quest board?" Kai asked. "The women in the village say you helped them."
Jameson set his cup on the table.
"I did help them," he said.
"That's true." Pause.
"It's also true that my system has side effects I didn't ask for and can't fully deactivate."
"What kind of effects?"
Jameson looked at his own floating panel — Kai briefly saw it as if Jameson had made it visible to him.
It showed stats in a different format than Kai's.
Darker.
With a main category that read, in letters Kai could read perfectly:
[Enchantment System — Active]
[Range of influence: 800m]
[Entities under effect: 47]
[Intensity: moderate — passive mode]
Kai read the panel.
Then looked at Jameson.
"Moderate?" he said.
"Passive mode," Jameson said, with the tone of someone who's had this conversation with himself many times.
"At first I couldn't control it. Now I can keep it passive. It doesn't attract. Just... retains."
"And the men who left?"
Jameson closed his eyes for a second.
"They left before I arrived. That's true too."
He opened his eyes.
"But with the system active in the area, those who considered coming back... didn't."
---
[GarcíaFTW: "didn't" — the system kept them out without him actively deciding it]
[NocheEterna99: it's a side effect he can't fully turn off. That's different from doing it on purpose.]
[StreamerHunter: Kai is processing this. He doesn't have the "I'm gonna solve this with punches" face.]
[xSorinx: Serah hasn't said anything either. She's evaluating Jameson in a different way.]
[Pedro_Sierra_8748: This guy reminds me of someone. I think I saw his stream once but I can't remember.]
---
"Why were you sent here?" Kai asked.
"What was your way of arriving?"
Jameson looked directly at him.