Yena-Style Mouth-Sealing Technique
Yena had woken up early in the morning with exactly one problem weighing on her mind.
"Hmm..."
Should she go looking for Lily, who had gone completely silent for a full twelve hours — or should she not?
From what she'd heard, Lily had pulled off skills so over-the-top during the scrim that they bordered on excessive, gone quiet for about ten minutes, and then both DeoEn and her stream had cut out entirely.
Since DeoEn and the broadcast were linked, the stream dying the moment the game did was a given. Sure, you could connect your stream to a separate device so it stayed live even if DeoEn crashed, but...
Lily never streamed anything but cam rooms and DeoEn, so she'd never bothered setting that up.
An already chaotic scrim had been thrown into even deeper confusion by Lily's abrupt disappearance, and the person fielding the most "is she okay?" messages — from Lily's manager, from fellow streamers, from viewers — was Yena.
The streamer with the closest friendship to Lily.
Yena had been Lily's first-ever stream guest, after all, and Lily had looked out for her enough to turn down an offer from the Angel Guild. To everyone watching, the two of them clearly went way back.
And, unofficially, they lived in the same apartment building, too.
"This is tricky."
But hadn't it been only four days ago?
Four days since Yena had tried to come calling uninvited, gotten thoroughly chewed out for it, and been sent packing.
For things to end like that, and then for her to suddenly track down Lily's home address and show up again... that was a serious problem.
Worse, this whole mess had blown up because Taebaek had come sniffing around so blatantly. If Yena pulled a similar stunt, wouldn't her reputation crater right along with his?
"Haah... this is complicated for me too, you know."
Scratching her head, Yena pulled on a black training outfit with three white stripes down the side and headed out the door.
She stepped into the elevator, pressed the button for the 17th floor, and followed the room number she'd been given. The lady who'd originally owned the unit hadn't shared the number at first, but when Yena explained that Lily had vanished without a word, she'd relented.
Vvvmm...
No reply on KakaoTalk. No answer by phone. Nothing on Discord either.
At this point, nobody knew if the woman was even alive or dead. There were no options left.
Unit 1701, firmly shut.
Yena stood in front of it and swallowed hard.
'I'm just out for my morning workout.'
That was the cover story. She always went out to exercise around this time anyway, and so many people had been worried that she was simply stopping by to check on her. No feelings involved whatsoever — just a quick check, and then she'd head right back out to work out.
"Okay. Perfect!"
Even Lily would have to accept that logic... right?
"Perfect at what, exactly?"
"Oh, uh, honestly it's pretty—"
...Huh?
A voice she absolutely should not have been hearing just then drifted over from behind her.
Lily stood there holding coffee and a paper bag of snacks. From the branding on the cup, Yena recognized the famous café a five-minute walk from the building.
But why was she coming from behind? Yena had ridden the elevator up alone, hadn't she?
Lily gave the bewildered Yena a single sidelong glance, then slowly turned her head toward the elevator bank.
'Ah.'
There were two elevators.
"Uh... I, um..."
"I don't think I misheard what you said just now..."
The air around Lily went frigid all over again.
This is a misunderstanding. A genuine misunderstanding!
"N-no, wait! Lily! Just hear me out!"
"A misunderstanding of what, exactly?"
Blue eyes gleamed above the black face mask. If Yena didn't produce a good explanation fast, she might very well get beaten with that coffee.
One wrong move and she'd go from concerned junior to guilty lookalike — a full-blown criminal who'd not only impersonated someone but stalked them all the way to their front door.
'No. That's... that's too much.'
A wave of indignation surged up in her chest, and Yena raised her voice.
"Are you serious right now?! Do you have any idea how worried everyone's been since you disappeared?!"
"...I'm sorry, what?"
Yes. That landed.
"You've been missing since eight o'clock! Your team players have been going crazy, your manager's been calling everyone, even your viewers have been out looking for you!"
"Ah..."
"I was worried sick too, you know! And here you are, leisurely sipping coffee like it's nothing! Everyone's been freaking out thinking something happened to you—!"
Yena-Style Mouth-Sealing Technique.
'Step one: bury your own fault under the other person's.'
Yes, tracking down someone's address and showing up uninvited was absolutely Yena's mistake. But looking at the situation as it stood right now? Lily had ignored her commitments to everyone around her, gone dark, and was now casually enjoying a coffee. Yena, meanwhile, had come all this way willing to be treated like a weirdo if it meant making sure her senior was safe.
Framed that way, Yena's little house call was practically an act of goodwill.
Lily paused for a moment — then bowed her head.
"I'm sorry. I pushed myself too hard and caused everyone to worry."
The apology was delivered with such quiet sincerity that Yena almost found herself straightening up on the spot. There was something so composed, so effortlessly dignified about Lily in that moment — she might as well have been an imperial noble.
'Yes! Score!'
Yena's transgression had officially evaporated into thin air.
Ahem! Riding her regained momentum, Yena scratched her head and asked, "So, um... why couldn't anyone reach you, exactly?"
"I used a big technique and completely drained my stamina and mana. I fell asleep right after and didn't wake up until seven."
"Oh..."
"The moment I woke up I should have contacted someone... but I decided to stop by the café first, and honestly, I got a little too relaxed about it."
There are people who worry about me, after all.
With that, Lily stepped past Yena and walked up to the door of 1701.
Yena fidgeted in place.
"So, um... well. It's just. I mean. Workout. I was—"
"Would you like to come in?"
"Yes, please!"
Nailed it!
"Whoaaa..."
Yena had breached the gates of Lily's home.
Same building, same floor plan — but everyone's interiors were their own. She hadn't seen the whole place yet, but it didn't feel like the home of a woman living alone. No dolls, no cutesy touches. If anything, it skewed masculine — clean lines and minimal clutter, the kind of space someone with a strong preference for sleek design would keep.
Lily sat down in front of her computer and started tapping at the keyboard.
"Have a seat for a moment. I should let everyone know I'm alive."
"Oh, of course! Take your time!"
Yena settled onto the living room sofa with the coffee and snacks Lily had shared out.
'It's spotless in here.'
She hadn't even moved in that long ago, yet there wasn't a single piece of trash or speck of dust anywhere. She hadn't cleaned up because she was expecting a guest, either — this just seemed to be who she was.
Yena snuck a glance.
Peek.
She stole a look at Lily as she worked.
With the mask off, Lily looked exactly like her DeoEn avatar. Not just the face — the entire build, head to toe, was identical.
'That's impossible.'
How could a real person look like that? She was like something that had leapt straight off the pages of a comic book.
Never mind the blue hair being dyed — that face alone could slap the cheeks of any A-list celebrity or model about eight times over.
"So, um... can I ask you something I'm curious about?"
"Go ahead."
Lily answered without looking up from her typing.
"Your avatar isn't custom-made?"
Among DeoEn's customization options was a feature that let you build a character identical to your real face. In that case, the system scanned the player's actual features — and that face could never be sold or shared with anyone else. You'd be creating the one and only character in the entire game. Because of that, people confident in their looks — certain celebrities and models among them — would deliberately use their own faces.
Lily paused for a beat, then nodded.
"Something like that, yeah."
"Whoa... and your hair? Did you just copy your dyed color as-is, or tweak it in parts?"
"Secret."
"...What?"
"I'm an alien, so it's classified."
Pfft. Lily chuckled and turned her head away.
The alien bit again. It did earn a little more credibility now that Yena had actually seen her face, though.
"How long are you planning to milk that joke?"
"It's true, and nobody believes me, so what can I do."
"Sure, sure."
"Oh — do you know how the scrim ended?"
"Obviously your team won, and while you were offline for those ten minutes everyone completely lost their minds. Vlack even laid into Taebaek pretty hard."
Yena kept explaining between bites of a strawberry macaron. Afterward, people had tried everything to wake Lily — potions, healing skills — but nothing worked, and eventually the game crashed and the scrim fizzled out unresolved.
Technically she'd bailed mid-match without wrapping anything up, yet barely anyone was blaming her for it. If anything, most people were expressing worry and concern over where Lily had vanished to.
"I pushed myself too hard and caused all that trouble."
"Pfft. You're supposed to use every tool in the box if you want to win! Honestly, I thought it was awesome. That rush when you just blast someone away—"
Yena spread her arms wide in an exaggerated reenactment. For all the soul-searching, her behavior was barely any different inside DeoEn than out.
"Anyway, don't stress over it. Everyone was worried about you, not complaining about you."
"If that's true, you were awfully hard on me a minute ago."
"...Ah! This is a really nice place, isn't it?"
Pfft.
"Yes. It's very nice."
After sending word to her editors and everyone else that she was alive and well, Lily decided to start her stream a little later than usual, around eight. There had been so much going on, and so much to prepare.
Yena had wanted to stay for lunch too, but after chatting for about thirty minutes, she headed home.
The reason was the looming deadline for the Lecture Hall Pass, which she'd completely forgotten about — her face went white the second she remembered, and she scrambled out the door.
Less than a week had passed, but with only a few hours left on the clock, who knew if she'd make it.
The moment she logged into DeoEn, hundreds of messages came flooding in.
They really were all worried, huh.
"Hmm?"
(You're not hurt or anything, right?)
"Leo. Right, I still need to get those mana stones."
Between the moving preparations and everything blowing up during the scrim, she hadn't managed to finish the mana stone work. That was probably why Leo had reached out.
First stop, then: the Margrave Leo's estate.