The quiet of Kaito's room at the Oakwood Lodge was shattered by a knock that was less a request and more a cheerful announcement. Before he could answer, the door swung open.
Standing there was a young woman who looked like a living sunset. Her hair was a cascade of vibrant red, and her eyes were a breathtaking marvel: the lower half of her irises blazed with bright red and orange, while the upper half was a deep, mysterious purple. The effect was both beautiful and slightly unnerving. She wore not the livery of the city watch, but elegant, dark grey traveler's clothes of fine make, though they were slightly rumpled as if she'd been fidgeting.
"You're Kaito!" she declared, her voice bubbling with genuine excitement. She bounded into the room without an invitation, her gaze darting around with childlike curiosity before locking onto him. "The pacification guy! The one who fixed the spooky forest and the singing water! Wow, your room is... plain."
Kaito stared, completely thrown. Her presence was a shockwave of pure, unfiltered energy in his world of quiet burdens.
[Sage, analysis?]
[Subject exhibits high-tier energy signature. Non-human. Designation: Half-Divine. Power level is significant but unstable, fluctuating with her emotional state. Threat assessment: Low, but unpredictable.]
"Who are you?" Kaito managed to ask.
"Me? I'm Iris!" she said, beaming. She leaned in conspiratorially. "Well, that's not my real name, but it's the one I like. Because of my eyes, see?" She pointed to her own heterochromatic eyes. "The King sent me! Well, not here here. He's in the capital, you know, doing king stuff with the big war and everything. But he heard about you! And he gave me a super important job to come find you!"
She bounced on the balls of her feet, practically vibrating. "You completed that super hard A-rank quest, the one with the sunken city and the icky black water. And the reward said 'Royal Favor,' right? Well, this is it! The favor! You get to come with me!"
Kaito was trying to keep up. "Come with you where?"
"To the capital! To see the King!" Iris's eyes widened with dramatic importance. "He doesn't just give 'Royal Favor' to anyone, you know. Usually it's for boring old generals or stuffy nobles who lend him armies. But you! You did something nobody else could, and you did it all by yourself! The King thinks you're fascinating. And he wants to meet fascinating people, especially when there's a big, nasty Monster King causing trouble everywhere."
She finally paused for breath, looking at him expectantly, her head tilted like an excited bird.
The full implication settled on Kaito. The King, the ruler of the entire kingdom, whose war consumed the continent's armies, had taken personal notice. The 'Royal Favor' wasn't just a line on a quest reward; it was a summons, delivered by a chaotic, half-divine messenger who couldn't be ignored.
"He wants to know about the sickness, doesn't he?" Kaito said quietly. "The one I've been cleaning up."
Iris's bubbly expression softened into something surprisingly perceptive. "He knows the land is sick. And he knows the war is making it worse. He thinks... he thinks you might be part of the cure. A really, really strong part." She grinned again. "So, what do you say? Wanna go on a trip? I promise I'm not boring like all the other messengers!"
She was an open book, her childlike emotion a stark contrast to the calculating gazes of Seraphina and Lord Valerius. But behind those sunset eyes, Kaito could feel the immense power she contained. She was a leash, disguised as a playmate, sent by the most powerful man in the kingdom.
He looked at her eager face, then down at his own hands-the hands that carried the memories of a dead king. There was no refusing.
"Alright," Kaito said. "I'll go."
Iris clapped her hands with delight. "Yay! This is going to be so much fun! Don't worry, I'll protect you if we run into any monsters!"
In that moment, Kaito knew the journey to the capital would be anything but simple. He had traded the quiet scrutiny of Whitepeak for the chaotic, and potentially far more dangerous, attention of the crown.
-----
CH73.5 The Sunset Escort
The moment they stepped out of the Oakwood Lodge, Kaito understood that traveling with Iris was a unique form of chaos. She didn't walk; she flowed, a whirlwind of pink-red hair and boundless energy, drawing stares from everyone in the street. She seemed utterly oblivious to the attention, or perhaps, she simply enjoyed it.
"Ooh, look! A pastry shop! Do you think they have honey-glazed buns? The capital has the best honey-glazed buns, but we can't get them until we're there, so we should get some here, right?"
Before Kaito could form a response, she had darted inside and emerged moments later with a paper bag, munching happily on a bun. She offered him one with a flour-dusted hand, her eyes crinkling in a smile.
He took it. The taste was sweet, cloying. He consumed it out of a sense of social mimicry, the act feeling alien.
"You don't talk much, do you?" Iris said around a mouthful of pastry as they passed through the city gates. "That's okay! I can talk enough for both of us. So, the spooky forest! What was that like? Was there a big, angry tree? I heard there was a Dryad! Was she pretty? I bet she was pretty."
Kaito gave a non-committal grunt, the memory of the Dryad's serene, powerful presence a stark contrast to the whirlwind beside him.
[Sage, her energy signature is... fluctuating. It spikes with her excitement.]
[Observation: Correct. The subject's power is not a steady state. It appears to be emotionally catalyzed. A state of high emotional arousal could potentially unlock significant, if uncontrolled, capabilities.]
Iris skipped ahead a few steps, then twirled to face him, walking backward with an impossible grace. "And the black water! You just... made it go away? Poof! How? Was it a big light? A giant wave? Did you have to say a special word?"
"I just fixed it," Kaito said, falling back on his standard, inadequate explanation.
Iris stopped her backward walk, her head tilting. The playful light in her heterochromatic eyes didn't dim, but it gained a flicker of something else-a sharp, intuitive understanding. "No, you didn't," she said, her voice losing none of its lightness but gaining a thread of certainty. "You don't 'fix' things. You... un-happen them. It's different."
The accuracy of her statement, delivered with such casual innocence, was more disarming than any of Seraphina's analytical probes. She wasn't trying to dissect him; she was just stating what she felt to be true.
He had no answer for that.
She seemed to take his silence as confirmation and simply smiled, turning back around to continue her skipping walk. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me! I'm great at secrets. I have lots of my own!"
They walked in silence for a few minutes, the city fading behind them, the open road ahead.
"So," Iris said, her voice softening to a more conversational tone. "The King... he's a good person. He's just... very tired. The war is like a big, heavy blanket smothering everything. He hears about all these little fires popping up-the mutated wolves, the sick forest, the poisoned sea-and his generals tell him they're just distractions. But he thinks they're connected. And then you show up, putting out all these little fires without even breaking a sweat." She glanced back at him, her sunset eyes serious for a fleeting second. "He's hoping you're not just a firefighter. He's hoping you can tell him who's setting them."
Kaito looked at the horizon, at the road leading to a king and a war he wanted no part of. He was a warden, a cleaner of messes. But Iris, in her childlike way, was outlining a much larger, more terrifying role for him: that of a hunter. And the prey was the source of the sickness infecting the world.
He was no longer just walking to the capital. He was being escorted to the center of the board, and his sunset-haired escort was far more perceptive than she appeared.