“Mr. Rex!”
Lily waved gracefully to me as he watched me walk over, looking genuinely happy to see me. His powers of deception were truly frightening. Had I not known he was actually a guy, and one of the most twisted guys around at that, I might really have fallen for him. However, I managed to avoid being charmed by Lily’s smile, then used Analyze on him instead.
【Lily】
LV: 8
HP: 150
MP: 62
Strength: 39 (D-)
Vitality: 52 (D)
Intelligence: 39 (D-)
Mind: 91 (D+)
Agility: 39 (D-)
Focus: 91 (D+)
I see, so he’s level 8 in this world.
I didn’t know how the exact formula worked, but in BB, the level characters were at when they joined your party depended on when you recruited them. In Lily’s case, his starting level was 5, and it went up slowly as time passed in the game. Two months had passed since the goddess’s message, so by a player’s standards Lily’s leveling rate was exceedingly slow. Even compared to other NPCs, his level was going up slowly. That made sense though, considering his class, Bard, wasn’t suited to direct combat. His Mind and Focus were decently high, but even so all of his stats were less than half of Rex’s. With a stat difference this huge, I’d be able to handle any surprise attacks Lily threw my way.
“Sorry, did you wait long?” I asked.
“Oh, not at all. I was just so excited that I came a bit early.” Lily smiled warmly at me, unaware that I was appraising his combat abilities.
His acting was so perfect I wanted to snap at him, but I kept my expression neutral and said, “I see. I guess that makes sense, since today we’re going to...”
“The Cavern of the Flickering Moon! It’s the last place my parents visited on their journey before settling down!”
❈❈❈
Everything’s going smoothly so far... I thought.
We were making swift progress through the Cavern of the Flickering Moon. That was hardly surprising, considering the puzzles were easy and the enemies were weak. Plus, I already knew Lily’s ultimate secret, so there was nothing to surprise me this time around. If it came to a fight, I had an overwhelming advantage.
But that was precisely why I couldn’t afford to let my guard down for even a second. Overconfidence got you killed. Besides, I was just a normal guy from Japan. Meanwhile Lily was a master trickster who’d lead countless gamers to their worst nightmare. I needed to always keep in mind that I was the underdog here.
I already fucked up more than once with my interactions with Lily, so I know how dangerous he can be.
While I hadn’t expected to run into Lily here in Freelea, that didn’t change the fact that I’d handled our meetings quite poorly. Especially yesterday when I’d gotten absolutely wasted—though that was Rex’s part in fault for not being able to hold his liquor worth a damn. Regardless, not only had I gotten so drunk that my memories of that night were somewhat hazy, I had woken up to find a kiss mark on my cheek. It was somewhat unnerving to know I’d been kissed by a guy, but that wasn’t the real problem here. Because of that, Recilia had thought I’d lied to her about trying to trigger an event, and had actually gone off to the pleasure district to have fun.
“I’m not mad that you went to such an establishment, brother,” she’d said. “What saddens me is that you lied to me about what you were doing.”
Suffice it to say, Recilia had been in an absolutely foul mood. I had no idea if Lily had kissed my cheek as a harmless little prank, or if he’d seen through my relationship with Recilia and done it to purposely drive a wedge between us. Either way, the results had been disastrous for me. Just thinking back to Recilia’s expression back then sent shivers down my spine. It had taken a lot of sincere apologies to get her to believe the truth. However, I had succeeded in the end, which meant if driving us apart had been part of Lily’s ploy, he’d failed! B-Besides, I hadn’t even really lied when I said I was trying to trigger an event.
I’d done more than just train Radd, Recilia and the others over these past two months. I’d been gathering as much information on the events I knew would occur and how to trigger them, and had also been testing just how similar this world was to the game it was based off of. Unfortunately, due to certain circumstances, and the fact that I’d been swamped with more Guild work than I’d initially planned for, I hadn’t been able to test too many things. There was one thing I’d managed to ascertain, however.
Major events that are set to happen in the game world can be triggered in this one too!
More specifically, I’d discovered that as long as you set up the situation to resemble the start of an event, it would progress roughly according to the event’s plotline. And right now, I was testing how far from the original event story’s plotline you could go to still trigger the same key moments.
“You really surprised me. I never imagined the dungeon you’d suggest we explore together would be this one...” Lily said, smiling happily up at me as we passed yet another puzzle room.
“I’m glad you approve of the choice.”
Indeed, it was I who’d suggested we explore this dungeon, not Lily. Under the pretext of wanting to see what kind of adventurer he was, I’d invited Lily to join me in a dungeon. I’d listed a number of dungeons, saying I needed to check them all out for work. Naturally, the Cavern of the Flickering Moon had been in that list. Unsurprisingly, Lily had taken the bait. He’d immediately agreed to join me in the Cavern of the Flickering Moon.
Normally, you’d have to spend a lot more time with Lily before the event where he invites you to the Cavern of the Flickering Moon happened. If memory served, you needed to talk to her at least twenty times in the game before she brought the dungeon up. However, in this world I’d spoken to Lily just twice. Once when appraising her, and then again when I’d invited her to dinner. We hadn’t spent anywhere near enough time together for the event to trigger yet. But if today’s dungeon dive went the same way the event was supposed to go, that would prove that you can skip through certain parts of an event’s storyline, and trigger flags even if you hadn’t met the conditions the game required.
“The truth is, when my parents were younger they traveled around the world,” Lily said suddenly, confirming my hypothesis. “When I was growing up, they told me tons of stories about the places they visited.”
Lily skipped happily as he spoke, looking as though he was truly enjoying this dungeon dive. I, of course, knew the truth. I smiled back at him, maintaining my own perfect facade.
“Of all the places they visited, they said the view at the end of this dungeon was the greatest thing they ever saw.”
Lily took a recording crystal out of his pocket, and it began to glow as he activated it. It was that hateful crystal that had brought me to utter despair back in the game. But right now, I was as calm as could be.
“Apparently this dungeon was the last stop on their journey, and when the two of them reached the end dad proposed to mom.” Lily turned back to me, still smiling. “Romantic, don’t you think? But you know, my parents are meanies. When I asked what kind of breathtaking sight they actually found at the end of the dungeon they just smiled and refused to answer. Instead, they’d always say, ‘You’ll need to see it for yourself to find out.’”
Lily looked forward once more, his gaze resolute. “That’s why I decided...”
He trailed off as we reached our destination.
“And now, you finally will get to see it for yourself,” I said, and Lily gave me an angelic smile.
“I can’t wait to see what special view they found. But it’s a shame. I was hoping I could adventure with you for a bit longer, Mr. Rex.”
Maybe it was just my imagination, but I felt like Lily was acting even more friendly than he had in the game during this event. However, that changed nothing.
“I just have to put my hands here, right?” Lily asked hesitantly.
As he placed his hands on the pedestal, the floor disappeared beneath us, and we fell to the fated final room of the dungeon.
“Ah...”
The room was as dazzlingly beautiful as it had been in the game. A field of pure white flowers blooming in the middle of a dungeon, emitting a faint glow that would be imperceptible if the surroundings weren’t so dark. It seemed this place had remained undisturbed in this world as well.
“I see. So this is what my parents were referring to...” Lily muttered softly, staring out over the field of flowers. Tears began streaming down his cheeks, something he noticed only a few seconds later. “H-Huh? Wait, why am I crying? Sorry, I...”
I grabbed him by the shoulders. As always, his face looked beautiful even when marred by tears.
“Rex?”
Lily looked up at me in surprise, and I was once again struck by just how well he managed to emulate a woman. There were inherent differences between men and women’s skeletal structures and musculature, which led to natural differences in the way they moved. It was easy enough to copy the standing posture of a woman for a single still picture, but copying all of the tiny mannerisms while moving around in real life was nigh-impossible.
Well, in Lily’s case it’s obvious the reason he’s able to act so much like a woman is because he’s been designed from the ground up with a woman’s build, I thought.
That being said, it was also true that part of Lily’s backstory in the game was the enormous amount of effort he’d put into looking and acting like a woman over the years. In a way his hard work was praiseworthy. However, it was unfortunately time to rip away the facade.