“I borrowed my mom’s clothes and started dressing up in them. I was smaller than her, so they looked baggy on me, and I didn’t know the first thing about makeup so I looked pretty crappy at first. But even so, when I looked in the mirror, it was a pretty girl that stared back at me.” Lily’s voice grew more passionate. “You have no idea how moved I was at that moment. I was prettier and cuter than any girl my age, and I knew if I put in the effort, I could become even prettier. At that moment I resolved to make myself the prettiest girl in the universe!”
I found myself captivated by Lily’s warped worldview.
“After that, it didn’t take long for me to learn how to apply makeup properly and buy dresses that actually fit me. A few years later, I told my parents I wanted to go on a journey like they did, and they immediately gave me their blessings. On that day I left the town I’d spent all my life in, reborn as a completely new person.”
Holy crap, he’s totally insane. But at the same time...
“My life changed completely after that. Before, boys used to tease me but now they blushed and stumbled over their words as soon as I smiled at them. Even the girls who’d talked shit about me behind my back just gritted their teeth in frustration because I was so much prettier than them. You have no idea how much fun it was to have guys drooling over me everywhere I went. It’s the best feeling in the world.”
The look of ecstasy on Lily’s face was indeed beautiful, in a way.
“But you know...” Lily’s tone suddenly turned angry, and he kicked me again. “Every now and again I run into guys like you, who don’t know their place! You men are tools who only exist to praise me and make me shine brighter!”
My vision started to grow blurry again from the repeated kicks as Lily raged on.
“You guys are disgusting! You all profess your love for me without even realizing that I’m a guy! You worthless horndogs!”
I couldn’t take this anymore. True, I’d confessed to Lily without realizing he was a guy. But that didn’t give him the right to insult me like this. If anything, he was the one who’d tricked me! He was at fault here! All I had to do was spread rumors about the fact that he was really a guy, and he’d be done for.
“Hm?” Lily looked down in mild amusement as I pushed his foot away and glared angrily up at him. Then he pointed to something on the floor, and I froze. “Oh, what’s this?”
“It’s...a recording crystal,” I muttered, stunned.
Lily grinned, savoring my reaction. “Looks like you finally understand the situation you’re in. Everything that’s happened so far has been recorded. Including the moment where you tried to forcibly kiss me after confessing, you pervert.”
I hung my head, defeated.
“Oh, where’d all that righteous anger you had go? Aren’t you supposed to be a hero? Surely you can take care of a weak little Bard like me? Come on, what’s wrong?”
This isn’t fair...
I wanted to scream at him, but I couldn’t say anything. All I could do was huddle up and weather the rain of kicks.
“How do you feel, you scumbag? You let yourself get seduced by a guy, got lured into this trap dungeon, and even left all of your powerful equipment behind! And now you’re being stepped on by a weak Bard! How does it feel, huh?”
Lily sneered as he mocked me. I wanted to shout at him to stop, to stop destroying the image of the pure girl I’d thought Lily to be.
“I can’t believe you fell for it. Do you really think there are women out there who’d say ‘Oh, I don’t need a reward. Just being able to see the place my parents spoke so much about is reward enough on its own’?”
There was nothing I could say, even as Lily brought his face next to mine and whispered, “There aren’t, you stupid virgin. It’s time you faced reality.”
I finally snapped. “Uwaaah!”
Screaming, I tore at my hair and slammed the power button on the game console.
❈❈❈
“Uwaaaaaaaah!” Screaming, I tore at my hair.
God, I didn’t want to remember that!
A few years ago, back when I’d still been in college, I’d been playing BB nonstop. Back then, I’d firmly believed that self-inserting was lame, but despite that I’d ended up completely charmed by the game character Lily Harmonix, and started self-inserting as the main character as I tried to get with her. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been a huge amount of information on the game online back then, and I hadn’t known that Lily was actually a guy. As a result, I’d gotten tricked by him and lured into that trap dungeon.
Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
It had been years since that incident, but I still hadn’t forgiven Lily, or the Braves and Blades devs who’d designed him, for that incident.
It’s just not fair! Not only does Lily look like a girl; his voice actress was a woman too!
I absolutely hated the trend of sticking characters in games that looked and acted and sounded like girls, but then it turned out they were actually guys. Incidentally, I wasn’t the only one who’d suffered at Lily’s hands. Most BB players hated her, and as more information started to pop up online, it quickly became clear that he was the game’s least popular character.
For starters, most everyone was bound to run into him during their playthrough. It was rarer to avoid triggering his introductory event. Up until halfway through the game’s second year, if you were in the same city as him, just walking into the bar would trigger his event. You’d see him getting heckled by some drunk patrons, and of course 99% of players would help a girl in trouble in that situation. Then once you do rescue Lily, most players would almost certainly want to recruit him into their party, so they’d all start working through Lily’s events and eventually get dragged down into hell once they hit the reveal that Lily was actually a guy.
Guys who cross-dressed tended to be pretty popular with the female player base, but characters like Lily were pretty different from the standard there. Lily was basically a girl in all ways, from personality, to voice, to looks, which wasn’t how the cross-dressing guys that were popular with women acted or looked like. As a result, Lily’s only fans were a few hardcore ascended players who had an obsession with his exact character archetype. Most people were like me and had been devastated when they’d learned the truth. In fact, quite a few of them had sent the development company angry emails complaining about Lily’s arc. Had I been more furious than dejected I might have done the same.
But my sorrow ends here. I finally have a chance to get my revenge. Just you wait, Lily. This time, I’ll be the one to cast you down into hell!
I grinned evilly as I continued writing my apology to Recilia, who was standing in front of me and glaring down at me, her arms crossed.