The dirt road ended at a gray stone gate.
Ten-ter walls. Two guards at the entrance. A mid-sized city with the na VALDRIS carved into the main arch.
Kai looked at it for a mont.
"This the place you ntioned?"
"Yes."
"I’m surprised you can just walk in like nothing." He paused. "And even more surprised that they’re so afraid of you."
Serah processed the question as if it were the first ti anyone had phrased it that way.
"Afraid?"
"Yeah. Afraid."
"Ah." Another silence. "So that’s what it was."
Kai looked at her.
"You didn’t know?"
"I never really thought about it." Serah observed the walls with a neutral expression.
"Whenever I got hungry, I’d co near this town. And out of nowhere, they’d start bringing food. So I just started taking human form so I could go into places they call restaurants."
Kai processed that.
"And how much do they charge you? You must eat a lot."
Serah looked at him.
"Charge?"
Kai looked back at her.
Silence.
"I see," said Kai.
---
[GarcíaFTW: SERAH DOESN’T KNOW WHAT ’CHARGE’ ANS]
[Eternal_Night99: she’s been eating for free for centuries through pure passive fear LMAO]
[StrearHunter: 2,300 years and never paid a bill. Respect.]
[Current viewers: 71,204]
---
The guards at the north gate saw them arrive at the sa ti.
The first saw Kai — young human, hands in his pockets, relaxed stride.
The second saw Serah.
There was a collective second of processing.
Then the first reached for the alarm bell.
Serah looked up.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t do anything.
She just looked toward the walls with the most neutral, unconcerned expression possible.
The guard’s hand stopped two centiters from the bell.
The gates stayed open.
Kai walked through without breaking stride.
---
What followed was interesting.
The people on Valdris’s main street had the kind of reaction that develops in frontier towns — quick, calibrated, no unnecessary drama. They saw Serah and calculated the distance to the nearest wall in under two seconds.
But suddenly they weren’t just looking at Serah.
They’d look at her for a second, register that she wasn’t attacking, and then their eyes would go back to Kai.
A human. No armor. No sword. No visible guild insignia. Walking ahead of an SSS-rank with his hands in his pockets like he was looking for a pharmacy.
The question was visible on every face they passed.
Who is that?
---
[Eternal_Night99: BRO THE WHOLE TOWN IS STARING AT HIM]
[GarcíaFTW: the SSS-rank walks by and everyone thinks ’normal’ but the unranked guy has them confused]
[StrearHunter: the face of the lady at the vegetable stall when Kai says ’good afternoon’ and keeps walking. Art.]
[New viewers: 4,200]
---
The restaurant was called The Valdris Pot and could seat about thirty people.
When Serah pushed the door open, there were twenty-two custors inside.
By the ti Kai walked in behind her, there were zero.
Only the owner remained — a stocky man in his fifties, wearing a work apron, with an expression caught sowhere between tired and scared.
Food was on the back table before Serah even finished sitting down.
Bread. Roasted at. Three kinds of sides. A pitcher of sothing that slled good.
The owner placed everything while staring at the wall.
Not at Serah.
Not at Kai.
The wall.
"Welco," he said, in the tone of soone reciting an ergency protocol. "The usual, Lady Serah."
"Good," said Serah.
Kai sat across from her and looked at the food. Then he looked at the owner.
"Sa for ?"
The owner looked at him for the first ti. He evaluated: human, no visible rank, sitting across from the SSS-rank with no signs of detectable physiological stress.
"Of course," he said, and disappeared toward the kitchen at professional speed.
---
[GarcíaFTW: THEY CLEARED THE RESTAURANT IN 4 SECONDS]
[Etenal_Night99: the owner served the food while staring at THE WALL. This is his life now.]
[StrearHunter: Kai asked for ’the sa’ like he’s a regular custor. This man has nerves of steel or no nerves at all.]
---
[System — Notification]
[Gift received: Interdinsional Gold Coin x50 — User: NocheEterna99]
[Interdinsional Gold Coins can be exchanged as local currency in any city of Aethon.]
[Current exchange rate: 1 Coin = 3 Aethon silver coins]
[Current balance: 50 Interdinsional Gold Coins]
Kai read the notification while waiting for the food.
"Hey," he said to the system quietly. "Can I use these to pay here?"
[Affirmative. Interdinsional Gold Coins are valid currency in Aethon establishnts.]
[Note: Most establishnts in Valdris are not yet familiar with the currency. Showing the physical coin resolves any doubts.]
[Additional note: The current establishnt will likely not charge the SSS entity.]
[But you are not the SSS entity.]
"I know," said Kai.
---
[Eternal_Night99: YOU’RE WELCO KAI. USE THE COINS WELL.]
[GarcíaFTW: the system made sure to clarify that HE will be charged. Honest.]
[StrearHunter: I just found out gifts turn into real money over there. Sending coins now.]
[Gift received: Interdinsional Gold Coin x20 — StrearHunter]
[Gift received: Interdinsional Gold Coin x10 — GarcíaFTW]
[Gift received: Interdinsional Gold Coin x200 — User: unknown]
[Balance updated: 280 Interdinsional Gold Coins]
[Note: The 200-coin gift has no traceable origin.]
Kai looked at that last notification a second longer than the others.
Then the food arrived, and he stopped looking at it.
---
They ate.
Serah did so with the efficiency of soone for whom eating is a function, not an experience.
Kai did so with the focus of soone who hasn’t eaten in over a day and has the humility to admit it internally.
Halfway through the al, Kai took out an Interdinsional Gold Coin and placed it on the table.
Serah looked at it.
"What’s that for?"
"To pay."
"The owner won’t charge you."
"He won’t charge you. But he’ll charge ."
Serah processed the distinction. Then she looked at the coin with sothing that, in soone with fewer centuries behind them, might have been called curiosity.
"Where did it co from?"
"My viewers. The ones watching from the other side of the portal. They send gifts, and the system converts them into usable money here."
"They feed you?"
"Basically."
Serah looked toward the corner where the chat comnts floated invisibly — she couldn’t see them, but she’d spent enough ti in this world to sense that she was being watched from there.
"How many are there?"
"Seventy-one thousand right now."
Serah returned to her food.
"Interesting," she said, in a tone that made it unexpected for soone 2,300 years old.
---
When they finished, the owner reappeared. He collected the plates while staring at the wall. When it was Kai’s turn, Kai placed the coin in his hand.
The owner looked at it.
"Interdinsional currency," said Kai. "Worth three local silver coins. If it doesn’t work for you, I can get change."
The owner examined it. Bit it lightly. Nodded.
"It works," he said. "I owe you change."
"Keep the rest as a tip."
The owner paused. Then, for the first ti since they’d entered, he lifted his gaze from wall-level and looked directly at Kai.
"Are you new to Valdris?"
"Arrived today."
"Will you be staying?"
"For now."
The owner nodded slowly, with the expression of soone recalibrating important information.
"Welco," he said. And this ti it didn’t sound like an ergency protocol.
---
[GarcíaFTW: KAI LEFT A TIP. THE OWNER LOOKED HIM IN THE EYE FOR THE FIRST TI.]
[NocheEterna99: that owner just decided Kai is a normal person and he knows nothing]
[StrearHunter: ’welco’ with the face of ’this human is the weirdest one who’s ever walked in here and that includes the SSS-rank’]
---
The Hunters Guild of Valdris was two streets from the restaurant.
Kai walked there using the ntal map he’d built while entering the city.
Serah followed.
People on the street were still staring at them.
They were still staring more at Kai than at Serah.
---
The guildmaster was a man in his fifties with the kind of posture developed by people who have seen too much to be surprised but not enough to be completely at ease.
He watched Kai walk in.
He saw Serah stop at the door.
He took a second to calibrate.
"New hunter registration," said Kai.
"Yes." The guildmaster set down the papers he was reviewing but kept his head turned away from Kai toward the doorway, watching Serah from the corner of his eye. "Na."
"Kai Reno."
"Ho world?"
"Earth."
"Noted. Skills."
"Martial arts. No magic. No elental affinity."
The guildmaster wrote. Stopped. Reread.
"Just martial arts?"
"The system couldn’t classify the rank."
"Let’s go to evaluation."
---
The tester was a blue crystal the size of a lon.
Kai placed his hand on it.
ERROR.
They swapped the crystal.
ERROR.
They brought out the ergency backup, the one from the locked display case.
ERROR.
Silence.
The guildmaster took off his glasses and cleaned them with a cloth he pulled from his pocket, using the movents of soone who does that when they need a second to think.
"Rank F," he said. "It’s the minimum assignable."
"Fine." Kai signed where indicated. "Can I see the board?"
---
The board had papers organized by color.
Blue for F and E. Green for D and C. Yellow for B. Orange for A. Red for S and above.
There was exactly one red paper.
Kai took it.
"That one’s been up for three weeks," said the guildmaster. "No S-rank team has accepted it."
"Why?"
"Unstable zone. Unconfird threat. Three reconnaissance teams went in. They ca back without usable information."
"They ca back?"
"Yes. Just without usable information."
Kai read the paper. Triple pay. Northeast zone. Threat category: open.
"Minimum rank?"
"Recomnded: S. Officially required: none."
Kai folded the paper.
"I leave tomorrow."
The guildmaster looked toward the door where Serah was still leaning against the fra.
"Are you going alone?"
Kai followed his gaze.
Serah was watching him with her usual neutral expression.
"More or less," said Kai.
---
[Eternal_night99: HE TOOK THE ONLY RED QUEST]
[GarcíaFTW: rank F. S-rank quest. with an SSS companion who technically isn’t a companion]
[StrearHunter: tomorrow is going to be the best stream of my life. I know it. I can feel it.]
[System — Notification]
[Quest accepted: Unstable Zone — Sector 7]
[User rank: F]
[Minimum recomnded rank: S]
User Comments
0 comments from readers