Erus strode down the road while Cana strained to match his pace. It was early, but the streets were already clogged with people busy with their morning routines. Despite the crowd, eyes trailed after them. People couldn't help but stare at Erus—and especially at the woman beside him. Her face was unfamiliar, and the sight left the locals unsettled. Why was a stranger walking so closely to the Curse-bearer and Tyrant Hunter?
"Are you that popular here?" Cana couldn't help but ask. She wasn't used to being stared at while walking—as if they were celebrities.
"Don't mind them," Erus answered, handing her a pouch of water. "Consider this morning walk to the guild part of our daily training."
"Oh, aye aye, Captain," Cana said, making Erus turn his head in her direction and stop walking. She gave him a salute.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Ah, I mean... Yes, Captain? Yes, Sir? Yes, Boss? Yes, Master?" Cana was confused. Was Captain also an alien word in this place?
"Those all mean the same. I mean—what did you just do?"
"Ah, this one?" She repeated the salute.
Erus nodded, while Cana pretended to scratch her brow, though it wasn't itchy.
"It was a kind of reflex. I mean... it means I respect you." Cana didn't know if she should smile or not; she had performed another act that didn't belong to this world.
Erus just went with the flow and sighed. He was thinking Cana was weird, but if she meant to respect him, then she passed.
They continued walking while the sun was still mild, not yet prickling the skin. Though the walk took an hour, Cana didn't complain. She was busy taking in a view so far removed from the modern world she had left behind. Here, she could actually breathe. The air was clean and fresh despite the cluster of houses. There was no trash littering the place, and the homes were sturdier and better built than the one she had shared with her family.
They stopped in front of a five-story building. It was massive, but it didn't look like the ordinary structures in the city. It looked like a fortress from ancient times, held together by sheer weight and history. Even the writing hanging above the door was strange to her. She didn't recognize the characters as anything from Earth.
"Castle of Lions," she read aloud. Her eyes went wide a second later.
"So, you can read?" Erus asked, his voice tinged with surprise. He hadn't expected Cana to be an elite.
"I..." She stopped, staring at Erus in confusion.
How had she read those unidentifiable lines? She didn't know a single Chinese or Arabic character, yet these nonsense line arts were perfectly clear to her.
"What kind of alphabet is that?" She asked instead.
There she went again, using a word that meant nothing to him. Alphabet—was it some kind of ancient language? He didn't even know why he was still acting surprised. She had been dropping alien words since the moment they met; why should her ability to read be any different?
"That's the guild's name," he answered, though he had no idea if that actually addressed her question.
"Ah," was all Cana said. She got it. Erus didn't understand the question, and she chose not to dwell on it. Less talking, less trouble.
"Any last words before I open this door?"
"What?" Cana's spirit faltered when she heard the question.
Why would he ask her that? Weren't they here to register? Or had he brought her here to die?
Then, she heard Erus chuckle.
He was playing with her. She wanted to smash him, but that chuckle was melodious in her ears, even if it didn't last long.
"Don't worry. I'm all locked and loaded," she joked in return, but it made Erus confused again. "Let's go," she added to hide her suppressed laughter.
Erus wanted to interrogate her about the unfamiliar words he kept hearing, but it wasn't the right time. Maybe he should ask her to teach him those words sometime.
He lightly pushed the heavy metallic door. Its creaking was a grinding assault on the ears of those like him and Cana, who possessed abnormal hearing. Yet, the door swung open as smoothly as if it were made of light wood.
Cana was greeted by a heavy collision of scents: aged parchment, baked food, booze, and sharp medicinal herbs. There was frankincense and myrrh, too—a scent like a cold cathedral that made the air feel thick and the ambiance intimidating.
Her nose twitched, adjusting to the heavy scent as they entered the hall. She followed Erus, her eyes roaming the space with wide-eyed intensity.
"Woah!" She exclaimed, her gaze snagged by the fancy chandeliers and the ornate carvings.
Despite the heavy atmosphere, the guild was meticulously maintained. The interior design was so well-arranged it made the massive hall feel even more spacious. It felt like stepping into a high-end hotel—one from the medieval era.
As usual, the place was a hive of activity. People hurried about with stacks of parchment tucked under their arms. Eyes were pinned on them—or rather, on the man ahead of her—but she didn't care. She was too busy fixating on the architecture. She looked toward the stairs; even though the flight was straight, the railings and steps were etched with intricate writings. On the second floor, a long line of people waited for something. She wondered what could be up there?
Then, she slammed right into someone's back.
"WOAH!"
"Oh, my gosh... she must be a newbie."
"She's so dead."
Whispers began to ripple through the crowd while Cana massaged her forehead. When she looked up, she realized she had walked right into Erus.
Why had he stopped?
More importantly, she noticed the piercing stares of the crowd. The attention had shifted entirely to her, and the sudden weight of those eyes was suffocating.
Erus turned around to find Cana still massaging her forehead.
"Poor forehead. My back has been trained to be tough," Erus said. He didn't crack a smile; his tone was as cold and serious as ever.
Cana paused, trying to decide if that was a rare attempt at a joke or just a blunt insult.
"Aish! Why did you stop?" She snarled at him, her annoyance echoing slightly in the quiet hall.
Instead of answering, he just gestured the registration counter where a shocked officer was looking at them.
"Ah," Cana hesitantly smiled at Erus, then to the boy.
"She's here to register," Erus told the man assigned in the registration desk.
The officer handed Cana the registration form at once, still wearing his shocked expression. It made Cana's brows to furrow.
She tugged Erus shirt to reach his ears and he leaned a bit not fighting back.
"Why is he looking at me like that?" She whispered at Erus.
Erus cleared his throat, his gaze cutting through the man at the desk and the onlookers who were still busy trading rumors. That single sound was enough for the silence to win the battle; the hall went deathly quiet.
"She's with Solari?"
The question came from a girl who clearly lacked self-awareness. The moment the words left her mouth, she met Erus' crimson eyes. She let out a terrified squeak and sprinted out of sight, her boots thundering against the stone floor in her haste to escape.
Cana's eyes followed the girl until she vanished, her brows furrowing in confusion. She hadn't seen Erus' eyes shift, so she had no clue why the girl had suddenly looked like she'd seen a ghost.
When she looked back at the registration form, she had to reread it thrice. The only blanks she could actually fill in were her first name and gender. Everything else was a mystery. Ability? Affinity? Power? Race?
Then she saw the request for Blood Type. She was O-negative. If she wrote that down, would it make her look like an alien? And her surname—could she even use her family name from Earth, or was that too dangerous?
Erus hadn't oriented her for any of this. He'd just told her she was registering, leaving her to face the "Manifest" alone while the officer stared at her like she was a ticking bomb.
And plus, the way she would write...
"Could you please do it?" She whispered again to Erus, who was still leaning down toward her. "I don't know how to write." She was praying Erus would be forgiving about this.
Erus was at a loss. She could read, but she could not write. Just how could that be possible?
Instead of asking, he just grabbed a quill from the other side of the counter along with the form Cana was holding. Cana mentally thanked Erus; she had never even tried using a quill before, and she didn't want to start now.
Cana intently watched as he filled it out with practiced, sharp movements.
Blood type: Rare. Ability: Blue Flame. Affinity: Fire. Power: True-blue-flame Summoner. Race: Mortal. And her surname: Athanasios. It sounded very familiar.
"What about the rank?" She asked when she saw Erus had left the line blank.
"You need to test your ability level for that," Erus said, handing the form back to the officer.
The officer pulled the paper close to his eyes, squinting as if to make sure he was reading it right. Even though he was desperate to ask if Cana and Erus were relatives, he couldn't find the courage. He pretended it was nothing special, hoping to keep his life as long as he kept his job.
Without another word, the officer guided Cana and Erus toward the room where her ability rank would be tested.
The guild hall erupted in noise the moment the door to the testing room clicked shut. The silence Erus had enforced didn't last a second longer than his presence.
"Did we just see a girl with Solari? How could she be that reckless around him?"
"Are you blind or an idiot? Didn't you see he wasn't avoiding her? He even talked to her."
"She's with him. I saw them enter the hall together."
"Who could that girl be? This is the first time we've seen Solari tolerate anyone acting like that with him."
"She's beautiful, too. Wasn't he the one avoiding pretty faces?"
"Yeah, I noticed that as well. She's way too beautiful for Solari to let her touch him like that."
Inside the testing room, Cana was staring wide-eyed at a long needle. It was the size of the needles used for sewing thick denim.
"N... no! What are you going to do with that? You aren't using that on me, are you?" Cana asked the officer. She had hated injections since she was a child.
Erus and the officer were left dumbfounded. They couldn't believe she was terrified of a simple needle, yet completely unfazed by the man everyone else feared.
Cana looked at Erus with puppy eyes, her panic rising. She truly couldn't handle needles, and the officer wasn't saying a word to reassure her it wouldn't hurt.
Erus took the needle from the officer and faced her.
"Couldn't you use your knife instead?" She begged as he reached for her left hand. She could tolerate a small cut, but the thought of being punctured by a needle was too much. "Erus—"
She let out a confused "Ha?" when he took her left hand and tucked it under his shirt, pressing her palm directly against his abs.
The officer nearly lost his composure. He couldn't believe what he was seeing; Solari had just broken his "no-touch" policy. And the name she had called him—hearing that felt like instant death for the officer.
Then, Erus reached for her right hand.
"Close your eyes," he told her.
Cana, now flushed deep red because of what Erus had done in front of a stranger, didn't even have the strength to complain. She did as she was told.
And the officer, out of reflex, also closed his eyes before realizing the command was not for him.
After puncturing Cana's index finger, Erus let the blood drop onto the table, which had a palm-sized crystal in the middle. He immediately caught the glint of yellow, vine-like lights spreading across the table and connecting to the crystal. He quickly released an illusion magic to hide the real result.
"It's... Rank B," the officer stammered. He caught the reading on the crystal and then immediately snapped his gaze back to the floor, no longer daring to look at Cana while she was still pressing on Erus's chest.
Erus nodded, but the shock in his eyes was visible as he looked at Cana. How could someone afraid of a needle be ranked as high as him? It seemed Uruja had hit the jackpot for him.
That was not a Rank B. It was Triple S.
"Are you not done yet?" Cana asked, still waiting to feel the pain from the needle.
"Open your eyes now."
When Cana opened her eyes, she was confused. Erus had done nothing.
"Is it done?"
"Do you want to see how it was done again?"
Cana shook her head frantically.
Erus smirked, burning the needle to ashes. He wouldn't be wondering now if she could burn down an entire dungeon.
The sudden, predatory narrowing of his eyes didn't escape Cana's sight.