Kara hurries and tries to save Sera, grabs her and hugs her. "When it was me, I tried to control my Sima level. Sera, can you try that?" Kara says, still tired from all the power in the room. Electricity starts coming out of the machine.
It begins to crack the looking glass in the control room, and the door connecting the two rooms shuts. Sera starts sweating, hesitant, trying to figure out how to do it.
Sera grits her teeth. "Kara, I don't know what to do."
Kara grabs her hips, places one hand on her head, and brings her closer to his chest. "Just focus on my heartbeat, nothing else."
Sera starts to calm down and listens to his heartbeat.
Dhuk dhuk.
Chino looks at the meter. "It's working. Nice work, future couple."
The electricity begins to calm down, and the machine slowly shuts off. Sera takes her hand away, her eyes tired as she leaves the machine.
Sera, weak, almost falls to the ground. Kara grabs her and places her on his lap. "It seems I used too much of my magic today…" She looks at Kara, blinks once, and falls asleep.
Sigh. Kara grabs her hand. "Chino, how are things going there?"
Chino comes out of the control room. "Thanks to you, nothing went out of hand. Since we couldn't really measure her limit, her powers just say she is an S-rank like you. I do need to know about her experience in combat outside the city."
Kara looks at her, grabbing her wrist. "It's like I said. She is quite experienced. I have already discussed this with the Grand Master; you should just confirm the details there."
"Okay, then if you say so. We're just putting her to S-rank, just like you."
Kara looks at Chino. "I remember it was like that for me too. Well, if everything is done, I'm going to go to the nurse's office, Chino." He stands and carries Sera in his arms.
Chino looks at the clipboard. "It seems everything is in order, and I won't be needing anything else, so you can go to the office."
Chino glances at Kara. Just look at them—they're just so cute.
Kara takes Sera and starts walking to the nurse.
"Excuse me, Neela, I think I need some help here." Kara enters the nurse's office.
"Oh, it's Kara. Okay, I'll make a bed ASAP."
Neela hurries and prepares a bed. "Put her here." Kara walks up to the bed and lays Sera down.
"Did something happen to her?" the nurse asks Kara.
"No, it's just exhaustion from too much flow of Si-ma."
"What did you even do to her, Kara? She looks so tired—don't tell me…" She looks at Kara with a smirk.
"Hey, why are you looking at me like that?" Kara says, uncomfortable.
Neela takes some equipment and checks her health. "It seems everything is fine. No need to worry. She should wake up after about 30 minutes. It's nothing lethal."
"Okay, right."
The nurse sits beside Kara. "So, would you mind telling me what just happened to this girl?"
Kara grips Sera's hand a little tighter. "We were just assessing her rank when the machine overloaded, like it did when I tried it."
"Oh, so that's what it was. The lights were flickering so much; I was wondering why. It seems we found our culprit… and then…?"
Kara looks at the nurse in confusion. "What do you mean? Did I miss anything else?"
"Aw, come on, don't be like that. Kara, who is this girl? She looks quite pretty." She puts her hand on her chin, looking at Kara.
Kara replies, tired. "It's nothing serious, just a friend from childhood."
The nurse gets comfortable and puts her hand on Sera. "Sigh. You're such a clueless guy, Kara. It's been years since you joined, and you never show interest in any girl. Then, out of the blue, you bring a girl and carry her like that—it seemed like a comic scene."
Kara looks at her in confusion. "Have I not brought Hana and Hachi?"
"Aw, silly. What are you saying? Everyone knows Hana and Hachi are like your own family, sisters. There's just no way we would think that. And from the worried look on your face when you brought her here, it tells me everything—how much you like her."
Kara twitches and turns his head away. I don't know what I'm feeling. It feels true, but I still don't want to accept it.
Kara keeps staring at Sera.
"Hm, nice, nice. Keep looking at her. I don't know when you'll have time to look at her like that again, so… haaa hahaa." Neela laughs as she starts walking out of the room.
"Yea, yea, thanks. Just go do your job." Kara looks away for a moment.
I think I'm all right now, but the things they were talking about… it's just making my heart throb so much. Should I just wake up and pretend it didn't happen? Sera, pretending to be asleep, moves a little.
Sera wakes up, rubbing her eyes.
Kara looks at her. "Hmm, it seems you didn't have any of the dreams you always see."
"That's what I was worried about." Sera looks at him.
Kara looks back. "No, just saying. I was worried for you for a sec."
Sera starts remembering his face right before she passed out—the confident, scared, protective look. She puts her hands on her face and blushes.
"Oh, there it is—the red face. Since you're up, do you want to check if the guild card is finished?"
Sera looks at him. "Huh, yea. I don't feel tired anymore. Let's go."
Kara gives a smile and stands up, walking out of the curtains toward Neela.
"Neela, she woke up, and we're going now. Thought, I should tell you…"
Neela looks at Kara and updates her report, "Yup, go ahead. Wait… what's her name?"
Sera looks at her, confused, then realizes. "Oh, sorry. I'm Sera. Seems like I just had a bad accident—sorry for any problems caused."
Neela looks happy and smiles back. "Oh, nice. You're quite nice—definitely more than this boy deserves. And when you two have fun, be careful—"
"We're going, Sera, let's go."
"Hey, don't ignore Neela like that…" Neela weeps humorously.
Kara softly pushes Sera and takes her outside.
They leave the area.
Neela looks at Kara a little closer. That girl… she has the same recovery rate as Kara, and their Si-ma is limitless. Who is she? What's even happening…
Sera stops as they walk.
"Hey Kara, what was she talking about?"
Kara looks at her and pauses. Sera's face slowly turns red as she realizes what she meant and starts flustering heavily.
They reach the main hall. "Hey guys, there you are! I was looking for you in the nurse's."
Sera looks back and sees Chino running toward them with a smile. In her hand is something shining in the light—they notice it's her new guild ID.
She arrives in front of them. "Thank you, Chino, for your help." Sera says happily.
"It's what friends do, and it's my job anyway, so I can't refuse whatever you do." Chino gives her ID to Kara.
Kara takes a look at the card. "Your picture looks nicer than I actually imagined, and… name, weight, height, and bust—"
Sera kicks him in the stomach with her knee. "It's bad manners to look at personal info like that, Kara!" Kara falls to the floor, clutching his stomach.
"Uh… yea, I understand…"
"Hey Kara, Sera, I need to go now. I have work—see you later! Hope we can hang out sometime."
Dang, that kick would have killed me… Kara slowly gets one foot up, wincing. Oww, it still hurts. He looks at Sera.
"It's what you get for looking at details that weren't meant to be seen."
"I… I'm sorry, my hands jus—" Kara tries to speak, still clutching his stomach in pain.
"I never… never felt someone as strong as me hit me with full power. It hurts… really missed it."
Sera crosses her arms, looking a bit confident as she glances at Kara and sees him still on the ground from her angle.
Swish. Kara hears a noise from his right ear and looks. Sera sits down and stares at him.
Wait… Sera? She's so close… why did sh—
"Are… are you all right? I'm sorry, I really wasn't careful enough." She brings out her hand and places it on top of his.
Wait… her hand… it's so warm… wait, she's touching— Kara looks away and hesitates while talking.
Sera changes her expression and looks worried. "Come on, tell me if you need help. I can take you to the nurs—"
"Ahh, it's okay, Sera. Really, I'm fine. It was just a hit—it doesn't hurt now." Kara stands up. "See? I'm all better now." Sera looks at him from below.
I should calm down… Sera being this close is just…
"Okay, if you say so. So what did they mean by 'don't have a limit'?" Sera stands up. "I think you guys mentioned something about a limiter or something like that."
"Ah, yes, that's what you were asking. It's a term used to calculate your power level." They start walking out of the lobby and enter the cafeteria. Sera takes a seat.
"What? And how does it work?" Sera asks again, her face confused.
"Ah, right. It's not common knowledge to people outside of Kioku. You know about crystals, right?" Kara waves his hand. Sera gets more comfortable.
"You mean the one that I break to increase my powers?"
Kara takes out a coin from his pocket. "So, Si-ma (Mana Crystal)—when a soul is born, their SP, or Sima points, start at just one. Later, after training the Sima power, it increases." Kara moves his fingers in the air to clarify the concept.
"But you see, there are points or phases where your SP starts to solidify inside you, creating Si-ma—a crystal inside you."
"You mean like this coin here?" Sera points to the coin.
This happens every time you hit a threshold, like 50 SP, where it starts, and it doubles the SP required every time.
Sera takes the coin. "So it's like the value of this coin? One gold coin is 50 silver?"
"I see you're getting it. It basically identifies how much total SP/Sima power you have, and from that, we see how strong you are."
Sera puts her hand on her head. Am I just stupid? It's hardly getting into my head…
"So it's like getting a box filled with my powers that gets stored until I want to use it."
Kara giggles. "You can say that. Only catch is that after every use, the power refills itself."
Kara points to himself.
"When I first came here, they assessed me with the basic test everyone uses, which didn't work. Then they took me for an S-rank assessment, which reads Sima at more levels. But it started taking Sima and didn't stop, which means I had way too many crystals."
Sera looks at him, surprised. "Wait… that's exactly what happened to me?"
"Yes. The same thing happened to us. It wasn't stopping, so I just stopped my Sima flow, stopping it from taking more. At that time, I think it took more than 50 Sima from me. Then I stopped."
Sera, a little unsure, looks at him. "So it had no effect on you, like it did on me?"
"It did drain me. Then they just said I don't have a finite number of limiters or Sima and classed me as S. I could be lower or higher."
"So they did the same with me too, then?" Sera grips her glass of juice.
"Yea, and since the tournament events, it seems I can control my 5th level of Sima. For you, though, we just have to test it until you pass out."
"I really didn't have any idea about things like this. I never expected to hit S-rank. How did you know anyway I would need an S-rank?"
"Oh, it was just a thought. Since you're a mix of two people, I thought your power must've doubled, since you were already B. It also detects levels less than S, so it seems I made the right choice."
Sera stands up. "Oh right, I need to go for the quest…" and almost walks.
"So tell me, Sera, why were you trying to leave the country?"