A Fellow Countryman (2)
I felt a nontrivial jolt of panic at the words that spilled out of Gehmajoshigi-gwat's mouth: "I've never cleared it. Not once."
Never once cleared Luminor Academy? Then how on earth had he gotten this far, playing everything by the book without a single mistake?
"You've never cleared it?!"
"Keep your voice down. Someone might hear you all the way from the dorm."
"Ah— anyway, if you've never cleared it, how did you even get this far?"
"We agreed to take turns asking questions. I just answered yours, so it's my turn now, isn't it?"
"...Fair. Go ahead, then."
With my head already spinning from the revelation that the Hero had never once beaten the game, Gehmajoshigi-gwat fired off his first question without missing a beat.
"What exactly happened between you and Ethan to make that kid go through such a complete metamorphosis? Don't tell me the real Ethan is somewhere else and you swapped him out for a different boy. Or did you install some mod that changed his character model?"
"I don't really know myself. I just did this and that to keep him from pouncing on me, and somewhere along the way he turned into... whatever this is."
"How am I supposed to work with that? You must have done something specific, at least."
"...His sexual harassment and general creepiness were so hard to stomach that I told him off a few times, and he ended up like this. I honestly don't know the exact mechanism behind it either. I'm not the protagonist in the first place—this is the first time I've ever gotten to walk around inside the game as Lilith, so how would I know?"
I left out the part where I'd come within a hair's breadth of strangling him to death with a pair of wet laundry. That was the kind of thing that, if I ever blurted it out carelessly in public, might well get my own neck wrung instead.
"Still, Ethan changes that much over something as small as that? I don't buy it..."
"Enough. My turn—next question."
"...Fine, go ahead."
"If you've never cleared the game, how did you drag a playthrough this far along? The fake saintess foreshadowing with Serista and the Silena foreshadowing aren't things you can even learn about until a second playthrough."
"I couldn't clear it, but everything up to that point I played properly, 'by the guide.' I followed exactly what someone posted as a twenty-fifth playthrough guide on the Lua gallery. I just never got to see the ending— otherwise I made it all the way to the eve of the final demon king campaign."
"Oh, come on. You were a guide-follower the whole time? And here I was worrying for nothing."
...Then say that from the very first answer. Seriously, you had me completely confused for nothing.
It was just as I was nursing that nagging feeling of having wasted a perfectly good question that a thought surfaced unbidden.
...Wait. Hold on. He just said a twenty-fifth playthrough guide, didn't he...
"Can I ask my question now?"
"Aah— yeah, sure."
Before I could even chew over the question that had just popped into my head, Gehmajoshigi-gwat's next one came without so much as a breath.
"You say you don't know the details of how Ethan changed, so let's set that aside. What's your read on Ethan himself right now?"
"Huh? What do you mean, my 'read' on him?"
"You've watched him closer than anyone. You should be able to make a decent guess whether he's headed for villain or hero in the story to come."
"Aah, that... But what would you even do with that? If it turns out he becomes a villain, then what?"
"It would be unsettling, obviously, given that he's someone I actually know... but if it's necessary to clear the game, then as the protagonist, I do what I have to do."
...Meaning that as long as Ethan wasn't a villain, there'd be no need to swing a sword at him at all.
I didn't like that tone—the one that made it sound like he'd dispatch Ethan's life as a matter of bookkeeping for the sake of 'clearing the game.' Still, put another way, it also meant he was every bit as serious about clearing it as he claimed.
Compared to someone preaching half-baked idealism, a player who doggedly followed the established route was, if anything, the one *I* preferred. If we were being strict about it, that approach left fewer variables for me to worry about.
"...I can't promise you 'hero,' but villain? Almost certainly not."
"Can you guarantee that?"
"The only reason Ethan was a villain in the game in the first place was because he abused me—er, Lilith. No abuse ever happened this time around, so there's no reason for him to turn. It's not like there was any plotline where Ethan himself got tangled up with the demonkin."
"...Well, he certainly doesn't look like someone being abused. If anything, he seems to absolutely dote on you."
"Well, we're dating, for starters."
"...W-what?!"
"Loud. They'll hear you inside."
The Hero was staring at me with wide, frankly startled eyes at the words that had tumbled out of my mouth without warning.
There was no particular reason to keep it a secret, so it was a truth I'd decided to reveal more or less casually.
And telling him directly about my relationship with Ethan—out of my own mouth—had a better chance of helping him trust me. Besides, "he changed like that to protect the woman he loves" made far more sense than "he suddenly grew a nice personality."
In truth, the way Ethan acted toward me made his feelings obvious even without paying special attention, so getting him to believe it wasn't exactly difficult.
"Wow... you transmigrated as Lilith and ended up dating Ethan? Seriously, your luck is insane."
"Let me make one thing clear: it's not that Ethan is my type or anything like that. I don't particularly care for men."
"...Huh?"
"Ethan likes me a lot, and I owe him for various things, so that's why we're dating. Don't get the wrong idea."
"Huh? Wrong idea about what? It's a man and a woman—it's dating if you want to date, isn't it?"
"...Ah. R-right. Yeah. I suppose that's true..."
...Now that I thought about it, he still didn't know I'd been a man in my previous life.
If he was reacting like that because he assumed a woman had transmigrated into a woman's body, I would have found it perfectly reasonable too. Objectively speaking, the current Ethan was practically a perfect man—handsome, a great family, excellent swordsmanship and all.
If he thought of me as a woman, it was far more comfortable to just let the misunderstanding stand. Temporary lovers or not, there was something in me that felt quietly scraped away at the idea of announcing I'd been a man in my past life and was now dating one.
"Anyway. My turn again, right?"
"Yeah."
"As the protagonist—what's your goal? Is clearing the game itself the goal? Is it marrying Seraphina and ascending as emperor after the clear? Or gathering the girls into a harem? Or something else entirely?"
This was the one thing I absolutely had to nail down before moving forward.
I'd more or less guessed that his objective was to clear the game, but what purpose might be riding on the other side of that clear was something I could only learn by watching.
Luminor Academy let you make a final wish to the goddess in the last episode after the demon king's defeat, then choose one of the ending branches.
You could become the savior-hero and pocket every last drop of wealth and glory, or, if all that attention sounded exhausting, there was a perfectly decent quiet ending where you simply settled down in a sleepy little village with your harem member(s).
Let me say it once more for the record: whether the Hero built a harem or chose a true-love ending was, frankly, none of my business. ...As long as he didn't plan to include me in the demon king campaign roster, or fold me into that harem, that is.
"Defeat the demon king and clear the game. ...And then return to Earth."
"Huh?"
"As far as I know, there's no return option among the original game's choices... but the goddess grants any wish you ask for, so it shouldn't be impossible."
"Really? You're angling for a way home from here? Once you've beaten the demon king, wouldn't living here be way more fun than going back to reality? You've already got three whole girls chasing after you because they like you, for crying out loud..."
"...Maybe someone else would see it that way. But from the very start, I've been playing with nothing in mind but getting back to my original world. I never even got a proper clear—I only ever read guides before I got dropped into this body. Isn't it only natural that I'd still have my heart set on home?"
"...When you put it that way, I've got nothing to say."
Granted, Gehmajoshigi-gwat's position wasn't exactly incomprehensible.
In my case, Luminor Academy had been the game of my life—I remembered a time when the sheer fact of having entered this world had set my heart racing.
There was even a point where I'd figured that if I could live a second life in this world, the whole gender issue wouldn't matter much. ...Being stuck as Lilith was still a bit much, though.
More importantly, I'd transmigrated only after dying for certain in my past life, so there was no way for me to harbor lingering attachments no matter how I tried. But this guy—there was a real chance his body was still alive and well back in reality.
Whatever he'd left behind there, that was exactly how much longing he'd carry with him. His declaration about returning to his original world was entirely reasonable.
"Well. It's your choice—I'm hardly in a position to argue."
"From the way you say that, I'm guessing you don't have much in the way of attachments to reality yourself."
"Me? I already died once in my past life, and Luminor Academy was my favorite game back then. Honestly, even if they offered me a free ride home, I wouldn't want to go."
"I'll respect your choice too. Everyone holds different things precious."
It was the moment I finally saw the full gulf between the Hero's values and my own when it came to this world.
And at the same time, some of his behavior—the parts I'd never been able to make sense of—started falling into place.
He'd slapped together that ridiculous keyboard-mash of a name, probably, because he wanted to draw a hard line between this world and a mere game world. If your future lay in returning to reality, then keeping things firmly at arm's length here was the smarter play than letting yourself grow attached.
And his insistence on following the standard route to the clear made sense now too. Whatever he'd left behind in reality mattered that much to him.
What I'd only ever guessed at until now I could finally be certain of, and the misunderstandings that had quietly piled up between us could be cleared away—in that sense alone, this had been a truly precious conversation.
To think it would take nearly a year and a half to have this one short exchange. It felt absurd, and yet somehow like a stroke of luck.
Whatever else could be said, thanks to his little scheme buying us this time, the possibility of me and Ethan ever actually crossing swords with the Hero in a fight to the death had all but evaporated.
As we traded questions back and forth like this, the ten minutes vanished in the blink of an eye, and I quietly concluded that keeping it to one or two more questions before heading back was the safest bet.
"Time's almost up. Let's wrap it up with your last question for today."
"...Right. We'll be working together until the McHart situation is settled anyway, so there'll be plenty of chances to talk about the rest."
"Nothing you're curious about? I know I don't look it, but I've played Luminor Academy to a downright cursed degree in my past life. I watched the ending twenty-four times and even serialized a guide on the gallery—I can tell you pretty much anything."
"Hmm. I've read most of the guides on the Lua gallery myself. Still—twenty-four clears? At that point, you're practically Lilgirlchang's equal, aren't you?"
"........"
-Jolt.
"......Huh?"
My body had frozen solid at the sound of my old community handle, spoken for the first time in ages—and catching my awkward reaction, the Hero fixed me with a distinctly suspicious look.
No way. That guide he said he read on the Lua gallery... could it possibly be the very one I—
"Hey. You."
"......What."
"Could it be... are you Lilgirlchang?"