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 fra where the door had been.
Then at Kai’s knuckles.
"Well done," he said, in a calm tone.
"Fra intact. Just the door. That’s control."
"Thank you."
"It wasn’t a complint." 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 complint. though it was, a little" — SOONE SAID EXACTLY THIS BEFORE ON THIS STREAM]
[StrearHunter: the android from the dungeon said exactly the sa 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.
"Co 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 sothing 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 ho of soone 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 — so 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 ... a what?"
Kai smiled indifferently while analyzing the entire interior of the house.
"You’re a strear... I rember when I arrived in this place, the system told I was number 4-thousand-sothing."
"So you figured it out."
---
[NocheEterna99: HE HAS A SYSTEM]
[GarcíaFTW: HE’S ANOTHER TRANSMIGRATOR]
[StrearHunter: "so you have one too" — KAI KNEW FROM THE MONT HE SAW HIM. KAI IS AN EXTRE 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 so 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 sa position she’d taken at the guild the day she first walked in.
Territorial.
Functional.
Completely deliberate.
The man looked at her for a mont and smiled, which caused sothing 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 ntioned sothing in my stream. Apparently they passed through yours." The man picked up his cup. "You’ve reached high peaks of interdinsional 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.
"Jason," the man said, extending his hand.
"Kai."
They shook hands.
"Why are you on the guild’s quest board?" Kai asked. "The won in the village say you helped them."
Jason 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?"
Jason looked at his own floating panel — Kai briefly saw it as if Jason 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:
[Enchantnt System — Active]
[Range of influence: 800m]
[Entities under effect: 47]
[Intensity: moderate — passive mode]
Kai read the panel.
Then looked at Jason.
"Moderate?" he said.
"Passive mode," Jason said, with the tone of soone who’s had this conversation with himself many tis.
"At first I couldn’t control it. Now I can keep it passive. It doesn’t attract. Just... retains."
"And the n who left?"
Jason 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.]
[StrearHunter: 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 Jason in a different way.]
[Pedro_Sierra_8748: This guy reminds of soone. I think I saw his stream once but I can’t rember.]
---
"Why were you sent here?" Kai asked.
"What was your way of arriving?"
Jason looked directly at him.
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