The first thing Kai thought when he saw what was coming out of the forest was:
That's really big.
The second was:
The system said SSS. Even with my nonexistent gamer logic, I can tell that's bad… but interesting.
The third, as the thing kept moving forward and the trees around it simply… parted, like the forest itself didn't want any trouble:
I'm hungry.
It was a wolf.
Or it had been a wolf at some point. Now it was something that used the shape of a wolf the way someone uses work clothes—functional, convenient, not necessarily its natural state.
Three meters tall on all fours. Black fur with veins of silver light pulsing through it to a rhythm that wasn't a heartbeat. Two eyes the color of ice right before it swallows you.
[SSS Entity detected — Classification: Primordial Wolf]
[Estimated age: 2,300 years]
[Threat level: LOCAL EXTINCTION]
[Recommendation: Flee. Flee now. Please.]
"The system said please," Kai noted out loud. "Interesting."
[GarcíaFTW: KAI RUN]
[EternalNight99: STOP READING CHAT AND RUN]
[StreamerHunter: I just bet another 10 coins he dies. I never learn.]
The wolf stopped ten meters away.
It didn't attack. Didn't growl. It just looked at him with those ice-colored eyes, wearing an expression Kai couldn't immediately classify.
It took him three seconds.
It was evaluation. The same kind of look he gave a new opponent before deciding how to take them down.
It was measuring him.
"Hi," Kai said.
The wolf didn't respond. Obviously.
"Hey," he said to the system. "Can you tell me what it wants?"
[Intent analysis in progress...]
[Result: UNKNOWN]
[Entity behavior does not match hunting, territorial, or attack patterns.]
[Closest hypothesis: Inspection.]
"It's inspecting me?"
[Apparently.]
Kai looked at the wolf. The wolf looked at him.
[User_4421: this guy is having a conversation with the system while a 2000-year-old creature stares him down]
[EternalNight99: HE'S NOT EVEN REACTING]
[GarcíaFTW: I would've peed myself already]
The wolf took a step forward.
Kai didn't step back.
Another step. Then another. Until its head was a meter and a half from Kai's face, and its breath smelled like an electric storm and something ancient that had no name in any modern language.
Those ice eyes scanned him from top to bottom. Slow. Methodical.
Kai held its gaze.
Not out of bravery. Just because stepping back in the middle of an evaluation was bad technique. He'd known that since he was eight.
The wolf exhaled.
And then something happened that took the system a full four seconds to process.
[ANOMALOUS BEHAVIOR DETECTED]
[SSS entity is... reducing its form.]
[This should not be happening.]
[The system has no protocol for this.]
[Please wait.]
The wolf shrank.
Not all at once. It was gradual, almost elegant—like water taking the shape of a new container. The black fur receded. The mass reorganized. The silver light running through its body condensed into specific points until it became something that looked like jewelry over dark skin.
Thirty seconds later, where there had been a house-sized creature, there was a woman.
Tall. Black hair down to her waist with silver strands. Eyes still the color of ice. The expression of someone who has lived for twenty-three centuries and formed very specific opinions about how the world should work.
Kai looked at her.
She looked at him.
"Your aura," she said, her voice sounding like it came from farther away than the physical distance suggested, "is the most interesting I've sensed in twelve generations."
"Thanks," Kai said. "I think."
[GarcíaFTW: SHE TURNED INTO A HUMAN]
[EternalNight99: SHE'S BEAUTIFUL??? WHAT STREAM AM I IN]
[StreamerHunter: lost another 10 coins. I definitely never learn.]
[New viewers: +12,400]
[Current viewers: 54,391]
[Gifts received: 847]
[System points earned: 847]
"What's your name?" the woman asked.
"Kai. You?"
"Serah." She paused, as if the name were a minor detail compared to what she was about to say next. "I have spent two hundred years searching for a being with a compatible aura."
Kai processed that.
"Compatible for what?"
Serah looked at him with the specific patience of someone who assumes the other person is intelligent and just needs a second.
"To produce offspring that inherit both strengths," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Yours, physical. Mine, primordial."
Silence.
[GarcíaFTW: LMAOOOOOO]
[EternalNight99: BRO SHE JUST ASKED HIM TO HAVE KIDS AT MINUTE 8 OF THE STREAM]
[StreamerHunter: I came for fights. This is better than fights.]
[New viewers: +8,200]
Kai looked at her for a long moment.
"No," he said.
Serah blinked. Probably the first time in two centuries someone had said that to anything she proposed.
"No?"
"I just got here. I'm hungry. I don't know where food is in this world. That's priority number one right now."
[EternalNight99: PRIORITY ONE IS FOOD]
[GarcíaFTW: SSS-rank proposes kids and he's thinking about lunch]
Serah studied him for three more seconds.
Then, with the same neutral expression she'd had for everything else:
"I know a place."
[SYSTEM — NOTIFICATION]
[A new entity has been registered within the user's radius.]
[Classification: Ally — Provisional]
[Name: Serah — Primordial Wolf — SSS]
[Note: The entity has indicated intent to remain near the user indefinitely.]
[The system recommends not arguing with this.]
Kai read the last line.
"So the system is advising me not to argue with her?"
[It is a recommendation. Not an order.]
[But yes.]
Kai pocketed the B-rank wolf fang and followed Serah into the forest.
[GarcíaFTW: this stream is going to change my life]
[EternalNight99: WHEN IS THE NEXT EPISODE]
[StreamerHunter: I'm going to lose all my money watching this stream and I don't regret it]