Chapter 209: Skyvine Forest
The next day came.
Kai and Sera walked through the city together, and people greeted them as they passed. Not with the wide-eyed staring of strangers meeting celebrities. With the easy nod of people who simply knew them.
They soon reached another B-Rank Gate.
[Dungeon Found]
[Skyvine Forest - B Rank]
The two stepped through the Gate, and the scenery changed instantly.
Instead of solid ground, they stood on an enormous branch, wider than most city streets. Below them, nothing but rolling mist. Above, an endless forest stretched up into the clouds, trees hundreds of meters tall, vines thicker than buildings looping between them like cables.
Natural bridges of woven root and branch crossed the gaps, and somewhere in the distance, entire waterfalls fell from one level of the forest to another, vanishing into mist before they landed. Sunlight filtered down through layer after layer of leaves, breaking into shifting beams of green and gold.
[B-Rank Dungeon: Skyvine Forest]
Sera looked up slowly, following the trees as far as she could see. "...We’re climbing all of that?"
Kai followed her gaze.
"I think so."
She groaned, dramatic.
"I should’ve stayed in bed."
Kai started walking.
"You would’ve missed the view."
She followed, reluctant.
"...Fine."
"It’s a nice view."
...
This wasn’t combat. It was movement.
They leaped from branch to branch, balanced across narrow roots, climbed thick vines hand over hand, swung across sections where the path had crumbled away entirely. Kai phased through a fallen trunk blocking the route without breaking stride. Sera simply vaulted over it, spear planted for leverage.
At one point, the path gave out entirely, a gap nearly thirty meters wide between one branch and the next.
Sera crouched at the edge.
"You first."
Kai smiled.
"Ladies first."
She rolled her eyes.
"Coward."
She launched herself across, gold light gathering beneath her feet mid-jump, and landed cleanly on the far side. She turned around, arms out.
"See?"
Kai simply walked off the edge.
Sera’s eyes went wide.
"Kai!"
He phased through the empty air and reappeared standing on the opposite branch, hands in his pockets like he’d just crossed a sidewalk.
She crossed her arms.
"I’ve decided."
"That definitely counts as cheating."
Kai grinned.
"I still made it first."
"You absolutely did not."
...
Eventually they stopped beside a gigantic flower growing out from the side of one of the trees, its petals larger than a carriage. They sat for a while, legs hanging over the edge of the branch, wind moving quietly through the canopy, clouds drifting slow beneath them.
Sera asked quietly,
"So..."
"When are you moving out?"
Kai looked over.
"What?"
She shrugged.
"You’ve got money."
"You’ve got recognition."
"You could buy a house."
Kai thought about it for a while.
"I’ve considered it."
"And?"
"I’ll talk with Mina."
She raised an eyebrow.
"I expected a more definite answer."
Kai looked toward the distant outline of Mythal, barely visible through the dungeon’s strange horizon.
"We like where we are."
"It’s close to Leo’s school."
"Mina can walk to work."
"It feels..."
He paused.
"...convenient."
Sera laughed.
"Only you would describe home as convenient."
Kai smiled.
"I don’t think bigger automatically means better."
She nodded slowly.
"I get that."
He glanced at her.
"What about you?"
She looked surprised.
"You’ve never asked."
"You asked first."
She thought for a long moment.
"...Honestly?"
"I’ve never really had a place I thought I’d stay."
Kai listened.
"I always assumed..."
"...I’d keep moving."
He replied quietly,
"You don’t have to anymore."
Sera looked at him. Then smiled.
"...Thanks."
Neither of them said anything else. The silence wasn’t awkward.
It was comfortable.
Eventually Kai stood.
"We should keep climbing."
She sighed, dramatic again.
"Reality returns."
...
A loud screech cut through the forest. Branches shook overhead, and several shadows dropped fast out of the canopy.
[Sky Talon Raptor]
Level 58
Unlike the wolves, these never stopped moving. They attacked mid-flight, wings folding and unfolding between strikes.
Kai leaped onto a higher branch. One raptor dove at him, and he sidestepped, letting it crash into the branch behind him. One slash. Gone.
Sera jumped between vines instead of holding ground, throwing her spear in a long arc, gold light trailing its path. One monster dropped out of the sky. She caught the spear as it returned to her hand.
Kai whistled.
"Showing off?"
She smiled.
"You started it."
The remaining raptors attacked together, and Kai and Sera moved almost instinctively, weaving around each other without a word between them. Neither gave orders.
Neither needed to.
Within moments, the canopy was quiet again.
...
The monsters dissolved. Blue windows appeared.
[Distortion Applied.]
[Drop Quality: Optimized.]
[Environmental Compatibility: Excellent.]
Rare feathers, still faintly iridescent. Wind crystals humming with trapped air. Monster claws. High-grade mana cores. A beautifully crafted pair of enchanted boots sitting neatly on top of the pile like they’d been placed there.
Sera knelt beside it.
"...Kai."
"What?"
"I’m starting to think the world likes you."
Kai smiled.
"I won’t complain."
She picked up one of the crystals, turning it in the light.
"We’ve had ridiculous drops in every dungeon."
Kai shrugged.
"I guess we’re lucky."
She pointed at him.
"No."
"We’re lucky."
"You’re suspicious."
Kai laughed.
"I’ve heard that before."
...
They pushed on after that, the terrain growing steeper the higher they climbed, branches thinning out and the mist below sinking further and further out of sight. The trees themselves seemed to lean inward near the top, framing a narrow shaft of open sky above them.
Sera looked up at it.
"That’s got to be the summit."
Kai nodded.
"Looks like it."
But the last stretch had no branch at all, just a wide gap of empty air and, at the base of it, an enormous fallen leaf, easily the size of a small boat, caught loosely in a tangle of vines at the edge of the platform. Wind moved through the gap in slow, deliberate gusts, strong enough to lift loose bark clean off the ground.
Sera eyed it.
"...You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking."
Kai stepped onto the leaf.
"I think it’ll hold."
"That’s not what I asked."
He held out a hand.
She looked at it. Then at the leaf. Then at the drop below them, mist and forest stretching down farther than either of them could see the bottom of.
She sighed and stepped on beside him.
"If this kills us, I’m blaming you."
"Noted."
A gust rolled through the gap, catching the leaf’s wide curve like a sail. It lifted off the vines all at once, tilting hard, and Sera grabbed Kai’s arm on instinct.
Kai simply smiled, watching the canopy fall away beneath them as the leaf rode the wind upward, spinning slowly, carrying them past branch after branch toward the narrow shaft of open sky.
Sera laughed despite herself, wind pulling at her hair.
"This is insane."
"You’re smiling."
"I said it was insane. I didn’t say I hated it."
The leaf climbed higher, the wind steady beneath it, until the trees finally thinned out completely and the sky opened wide above them, clean and blue and endless.
Ahead, carved into the final ring of branches at the very top of the forest, stood a massive archway of woven root and vine, pulsing faintly with mana.
The entrance to the boss arena.
Kai’s smile settled into something quieter, more focused.
"There it is."
Sera’s grip on his arm eased, replaced by the familiar readiness of someone reaching for her spear.
"Finally."
The leaf drifted toward the archway, slowing as the wind settled, and the two of them stepped off onto solid ground at last, the entrance looming ahead of them in the open sky.