When they finished, Lira gave the order.

"Withdraw to the kingdom."

And all she did was stay staring at the guild floor.

Eris didn’t move.

"My lady, perhaps it would be appropriate to—"

"To the kingdom, Eris."

"But your safety—"

"To the kingdom."

Eris looked at Lira.

Looked at Kai.

Looked at Serah.

She processed the situation with the expression of someone who has objections but recognizes when objections aren’t going to change anything.

"Alright," she said.

She left. The thirty vampires followed her.

The guild door — the new one, of fresh wood that smelled of recent work — closed behind the last one.

The guild fell silent.

Lira was still on the floor.

---

[GarcíaFTW: ERIS LEFT RELUCTANTLY]

[NocheEterna99: "perhaps it would be appropriate to—" / "to the kingdom, Eris" — there was no possible negotiation]

[StreamerHunter: the vampires repaired everything in under two hours. EVERYTHING. BETTER THAN BEFORE.]

[DragonicLegacy: Eris looking at Kai before leaving with an expression I’m going to think about for a long time]

[Jac_Moore: she knows Lira is... in a vulnerable situation. And she left anyway because Lira ordered it.]

[Mist_Of_Death: Lira alone. In the guild. On the floor.]

[RagingMutant: ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(; ̄◇ ̄)┘ LIRA ALONE ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(; ̄◇ ̄)┘]

[Pedro_Sierra: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) what will happen now ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

About five days later.

Kai and Serah entered the guild the next morning as if nothing had happened.

Serah with her markings in their usual steady glow.

Kai with his side bandaged under his clothes and his shoulder still protesting but which he’d decided to ignore.

Aldric had offered to bring a mage from the guild to heal him with magic, but he protested.

Aldric looked up from his desk.

"Good morning."

"Good morning," Kai said. "Any quests available?"

"There are three marked red that came in this morning from the eastern sector."

"Good."

Aldric watched them for a moment.

"Everything’s been calm and boring these five days since the situation with Lira."

Aldric took a sip of his coffee and then set it on the table.

"Now that we’re talking about the Lira situation..."

"Aren’t you going to do something about...?" He made a vague gesture toward the center of the room.

Kai and Serah turned around.

Lira was still at the same spot on the floor where she’d been since yesterday.

Exactly the same position.

The same stare fixed on the floor.

The difference was that someone — probably Aldric, because it was the kind of thing Aldric would do — had left a folded blanket beside her.

She hadn’t used it.

But it was still there.

Serah looked at her.

"Don’t worry," she said.

"After a hundred years she’ll get bored and leave."

Aldric processed this.

"A hundred years?"

"Approximately."

Aldric looked at the blanket.

Looked at Lira.

Looked at his coffee cup.

"Well, that would be problematic..."

"I was thinking of putting a statue of a vampire there."

He made a silent decision and drank.

Although I suppose it won’t be necessary to spend money on it anymore.

---

[NocheEterna99: "AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS SHE’LL GET BORED AND LEAVE"]

[GarcíaFTW: SERAH SAID IT WITH COMPLETE SERIOUSNESS]

[StreamerHunter: Aldric left her a blanket. ALDRIC LEFT A BLANKET FOR LIRA.]

[DragonicLegacy: Serah calculated a hundred years as a reasonable timeframe. Her time scale is different from ours.]

[Jac_Moore: Well you have to understand that for Serah a hundred years is "a while"]

[Mist_Of_Death: the folded blanket Lira didn’t use but is still there. ALDRIC IS THE BEST CHARACTER.]

[RagingMutant: ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(; ̄◇ ̄)┘ Kai just waiting to run to the next mission ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(; ̄◇ ̄)┘]

[Pedro_Sierra: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Kai’s going to do something ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I know it ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

---

Kai looked at Lira and sighed.

Then he turned toward Lira.

"I suppose the more we try to ignore it, the more problems it’ll bring."

He approached Lira.

He crouched down to her level, looking down, squatting beside her.

Lira didn’t look up.

"I can’t go back," she said. Her voice didn’t have the usual aristocratic tone.

It had the tone of someone saying something that’s been in a mental collapse of their dignity and isn’t improving with processing.

"I can already imagine how they’ll be talking and mocking me."

"The Duchess finally discovered the sun doesn’t kill vampires and was like an idiot screaming on the floor waiting for her death."

"The nobles have been waiting centuries for something like this from me."

"Even my subordinates must be mocking me..."

"Waiting to get to the Kingdom to tell everyone."

Kai didn’t answer right away.

"So what will you do then?" he said.

"Stay here forever?"

"I suppose this floor isn’t so bad for a shame like me."

Silence.

"But this isn’t really my fault, right?"

Lira turned toward him.

Her red eyes — the ones that had held the red of predator instinct, the calm red of eight hundred years, the red of tactical evaluation — now held the red of something with no easy category.

"It’s your fault," she said.

Kai looked at her.

"You broke the window." It wasn’t exactly an accusation. It was the exposition of a logic she’d been building on the floor for twenty-four hours.

"You created this situation." A pause.

"It’s your responsibility."

Kai looked at her a second longer.

"Then," Lira said, without taking her eyes off his, "you’ll have to take responsibility."

Kai for the first time showed surprise since arriving in this world.

"What the hell? And why me?"

---

[GarcíaFTW: "YOUR RESPONSIBILITY"]

[NocheEterna99: LIRA TURNED HER DEFEAT INTO KAI’S RESPONSIBILITY]

[StreamerHunter: "you created this situation" — technically correct. KAI BROKE THE WINDOW.]

[DragonicLegacy: THIS CHARACTER. THIS CHARACTER IS EVERYTHING.]

[Jac_Moore: @DragonicLegacy she went from wanting to drink his blood to making him responsible for her life in less than 24 hours]

[Mist_Of_Death: Serah listening to this from behind with an expression that’s going to need a whole Chapter to process]

[RagingMutant: Serah’s markings pulsed. I saw them from here.]

[Pedro_Sierra: ε=ε=ε=ε=( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ε=ε=ε=ε= Kai’s harem expands ε=ε=ε=ε=( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ε=ε=ε=ε=]

[System — notification]

[The system notes that Lira has declared Kai responsible for her current situation]

[The system also notes that the logic presented is technically valid]

[The system notes that Serah is standing behind Kai]

[The system considers that the next few minutes are going to be interesting]

[The system only reports]

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