They did not talk at the gate.

Too many people were still gathered at the exit point, phones out, and the noise of a crowd.

"...Did you see that?"

"Another D-rank dungeon was completed!"

Sera walked away from it without looking back, not toward the main street but away from it, turning onto a quieter block that ran parallel to the commercial district.

Kai followed.

The others stayed at the gate as they were quickly swarmed by the crowd. They didn’t mind, you could tell from the smiles.

The block Sera chose had less foot traffic than anywhere they had been since entering the dungeon. She stopped and turned.

She did not waste time on approach.

"What you did back there," she said, "isn’t normal."

Kai did not respond but waited for her to finish.

"You don’t just learn faster but somehow get stronger when it matters." Sera paused before tilting her head. "Or you’ve been holding back."

"Which one do you think it is?"

"A mix of both, maybe?" Sera crossed her arms. "It might be an item of yours that works under a specific condition... Such as you being hit hard or almost dying."

"You noticed all that?"

"I always do." Sera sighed. "I was wondering who it would rush to and thinking of a plan to kill it." 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"So you had no plan back then?"

"I had something." Sera shrugged. "Doesn’t matter now."

Kai raised a brow, but he didn’t push her on it and asked. "So why call me out here? Other than the monster jumping level, I can only think of another thing."

Sera nodded and said. "I’m not trying to recruit you. I can tell that isn’t what you’re seeking."

Kai’s attention sharpened slightly.

"No guild, ownership, or lock-in." She set each one down on its own. "What I want is a partnership between you and me for higher-level dungeon runs."

"Higher levels? You mean–"

"Yes, C-ranks. I’m sure you are aware that C-rank dungeons have a 15% mortality rate for unprepared teams," she continued. "Even prepared teams lose people." She looked at him directly. "But with your skill, you might actually be the perfect partner for it."

"Here’s what you need to know," she said. "I’ve run twelve C-rank dungeons before and lost partners in three of them."

The number hung in the air.

"Not because I was careless. Because C-rank doesn’t care how good you are. It’ll kill you if you make one mistake."

She crossed her arms.

"So if you’re coming with me tomorrow, understand this. I will keep you alive if I can, but I won’t die for you. And I expect the same."

The danger was obvious.

C-rank killed under-leveled, under-equipped teams, and he was both. But a clear meant bigger rewards. Enough to take a real bite out of the debt, enough to give Mina some breathing room from it.

"How much does the drop for a C-rank dungeon usually sell for?" Kai asked.

"Minimum ten thousand and more if we’re lucky."

Ten thousand minimum. With his distortion running at current conditions, the actual payout would be significantly higher. He ran the numbers against what the debt still needed, how many days remained, and what the risk cost against the alternative of continuing to run E-rank chains around Ironpact’s managed gates.

Kai looked at her for a moment. "Alright," he said.

She relaxed just a little as if she was worried he would refuse. "Good," Sera said. "I will text you in two days, so that we can begin." She stared at him for a couple more seconds. "Be ready."

She turned to walk back toward the gate and then stopped.

"One more thing," she said, without turning around. "Before we run together."

Kai waited.

She turned. "There’s a café two blocks from the eastern gate. Tonight, if you have time." She said it flatly, without performance or hesitation. "It’s better to know each other before we trust each other with our lives. I find it reduces the number of surprises inside a dungeon."

It was the most practical argument for getting to know someone that Kai had heard.

"Alright, let’s go now," he said.

She nodded once and started walking, and he followed.

...

They sat for a moment without speaking, which did not feel like an uncomfortable silence. It felt like two people who had already established they did not need to fill space. She was looking at the window rather than him. He followed her gaze out the window, and for a moment felt more comfortable than he’d expected.

"What did you do before the system?" Kai asked.

Sera looked at her cup. "I used to run for... Track. I was preparing for a qualifier." She said it softly. "The system arrived four days before the event."

She picked up her cup, and he glanced down at her hands. They weren’t shaking like he thought they would be, and instead they were steady like she had gotten over it.

"I’m sorry," Kai said.

"I was angry for about three days." She shrugged, not dismissively, just honestly. "Then I figured the goal hadn’t gone anywhere. It had just changed shape." She glanced at him. "C-rank dungeons are like that, too. You work toward something, and when you get there, you find out it was just the bottom of the next thing."

Kai looked at her across the table.

"What about you?" she said.

"I didn’t have many hobbies because I was busy with work," he said. "But I did enjoy going on a run to clear my mind."

She nodded as if that was a complete answer. For her, it appeared to be.

They continued speaking for the next hour, and somewhere in the second half of the hour, he had lost track of time. It was unusual enough that he only noticed it after the fact, when the cup was empty, and she mentioned it.

He wasn’t entirely sure when the shift had happened.

Outside, the street split them naturally, her way home going one direction and his going another. They said goodnight, and that was all it needed.

...

The sun was low when Kai got back to the apartment. He could hear Leo from the hallway before he opened the door.

He saw Mina was at the table with something in front of her, she had apparently stopped looking at it a while ago. Leo was on the floor near the couch with his back against it, and he was sleeping softly.

"You’re back," Mina said.

"Yeah." Kai set his bag down and sat across from her. "I found a team."

Mina looked up with a surprised look. "And?" she said.

"It worked." A pause. "I have a partner now."

"Partner," she said. "So that means–"

"Independent with no affiliation. We just do dungeon runs and split the reward, nothing else."

Mina leaned back slightly in her chair, settling into the thought rather than reacting to it. She was quiet for a moment, and then she looked at him with a watchful expression. "What are they like?" she said.

Kai paused as he recalled Sera’s movements and actions in the dungeon. "A calm person who is practical," he said.

Mina blinked once. "That’s it?"

"She didn’t waste my time."

Mina looked at him for a moment with the expression she used when she was deciding whether to push further. She let it be. "Good," she said, quieter than before, like the word was for herself rather than him. "What type of E-rank dungeon..."

"She is planning a C-rank one."

The air in the room changed.

Mina’s face went very still. "C-rank."

"Yeah."

"I have seen other players try a C-rank and most of the time it ends badly... very bad." Her voice was flat.

But he could tell she was furious, but not trying to show it.

"I know."

"Kai—"

"It will cover a lot of the debt." He said. "Potentially more."

That stopped her, making her close her eyes and then say. "No. We will find another way."

"You don’t need to–"

"Worry? Damn it, Kai! Of course, I’m going to worry." Mina glared at him. "You got seriously hurt from an F-rank dungeon! A C rank is three tiers higher! How do you expect to be calm about doing a C-rank?"

"I expect you to trust me, like you always do."

Those words made Mina pause, but she was still glaring at him. He took her hands gently. "You know I would never do a C-rank dungeon if I didn’t have full confidence I would survive, right?"

"But... I feel like the debt might be pushing you."

"It isn’t." Kai smiled and squeezed Mina’s hands. "Everything will be fine, and I promise to not come home injured that day."

"If you come back with even one injury, you don’t go back to C-rank. Not until you’re stronger."

Kai looked at her and felt her squeezing his hands like she was afraid he would let go. "Deal," he said. "No injuries. I promise."

"Hopefully, this new partner of yours won’t drag you down."

Kai chuckled, but before he could say anything, Leo perked up before rubbing his eyes. "W-What? You got a partner?"

"Yeah, I just met her in my recent run," Kai said with a chuckle. "Although I’m surprised that it woke you up."

Leo leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and gave the situation the serious attention he reserved for things he had decided were genuinely important. "Is she cool?"

"Very much."

A massive grin appeared on Leo face. "That’s awesome!" He scrambled up off the floor. "Does this mean you can do more dungeons? Make more money? Does this mean—"

"Leo," Mina said, but she was smiling now. "Let him breathe."

Leo ignored her and launched himself at Kai, throwing his arms around his shoulders from behind the chair. "You’re gonna be so cool. Like, actually cool. Not just trying-to-be-cool."

"I’m not trying to be cool," Kai said, but he was smiling.

"Yeah, you are. But it’s working now." Leo squeezed harder. "I’m proud of you."

Kai smiled while Mina shook her head once. "You’re both weird," she said.

"But it’s working," Leo said with a grin.

Twenty minutes passed before everyone settled.

Leo was already drifting back toward horizontal. Mina had gone back to whatever she had been not looking at before Kai came in. The warm light and the familiar sounds and the sense of the apartment being exactly the size it was supposed to be.

Things were stable.

Not solved as the Ironpact was still out there, and Victor’s ranking was sitting above his by a gap that was specific and measurable.

But stable for now.

He picked up the glass and drank, and let the apartment be quiet around him.

Two days.

Then the next phase of the calculation would begin.