A Sea of Lilys
What would unfold today? Thinking it over, it was only natural.
Almost no one believed that Lily in DeoEn and Lily in real life were the same person. Sure, someone out there might be chanting self-hypnosis like 'Lily an ordinary person? No way!', but most people drew a clear line between the game and reality.
Regrettably, they were all wrong.
'The me in real life and the me in the game are one and the same.'
Blue hair, ocean-blue eyes, and a face and figure you could hardly tear your gaze away from. It was just barely conceivable that the face and figure could belong to two different people — but in this world, there was no natural-born human with 'blue hair.'
And if there were, it'd be dye or a wig.
"Good thing I bothered to hide it."
Arriving at DeoEn Stadium, I muttered quietly as I faced the sea of people. Scattered throughout the crowd were plenty of DeoEn rankers — or rather, people cosplaying rankers and other special NPCs — and the vast majority of them were 'me.'
Pure-white holy vestments over blue hair. Whether they'd put in colored contacts or not, the ocean-blue eyes glittered in the sunlight, and each of them clutched a spear or a hammer in hand.
There were over a hundred of them.
"At this point I could probably walk around without a hat and mask and nobody would notice."
"Oh c'mon~ Lily, with a face like yours? That'd be asking for trouble."
Yena shook her head and flatly refused the idea. It was true that even with most of my body covered, I was drawing a fair share of glances from the crowd. Short of wrapping myself in a full cloak, there was no hiding this body.
The one silver lining was that hardly anyone found it strange to see blue hair peeking out from under my hat.
"More importantly, are you going to be okay, Yena?"
"Huh?"
"Your face is right there too, you know."
Yena's custom avatar had been built from her real face as a base. To be precise, it was a strictly upgraded version of the real-world Yena. With her makeup done and looking pretty like this, she resembled her in-game self quite closely.
Yena scratched her head awkwardly.
"Well... I'm used to it by now. It's not like I go out that often."
Mm-hm.
"I used to do cam streams too, so hiding it at this point would be kind of pointless. Honestly, when I think about it, what is there to hide anyway?"
"..."
"If I get recognized, I get recognized. Come at me if you dare! That's my attitude these days."
"Fair enough."
Once you'd shown your face to the world, there was no such thing as living a normal life behind a mask. People were far more tenacious than you'd think — no matter how well you hid, they'd track you down in the end. You just had to accept it and get on with living.
"Still, I should stay careful. I don't mind, but nothing better happen to you, Lily..."
With that, Yena shielded her face with a breezy-looking wide-brimmed hat, then hummed a little tune as she carved her way into the crowd.
Clearly practiced at this, she navigated the throngs with unerring precision. Meanwhile, I swept my gaze quickly around the area.
Something's off.
"Looking for something?"
"I can't find any Yena."
"? I'm right here, though?"
Yena tilted her head, and I shook mine.
"I can't find any Yena cosplayers."
There should definitely have been some. Why weren't there any?
"...Huh? Ahaha. There'll be some. Like there'd ever be none of me."
Yena said this with all the confidence in the world, yet she looked just a little uneasy. In fairness, the cosplay count here matched the size of the crowd. The most numerous, first and foremost, was me, followed by Choco and Baekseol, the stars of today's finals. After that came Geomsin — still popular despite his recent troubles — and Michael, head of the Angel Guild. Star-Sword Maiden Aisha and Luna, the spear-wielding spirit master, trailed behind them.
Leo was enormously popular, but thanks to the whole 'little kid' character thing, cosplaying her was a bit of an awkward proposition, so the numbers were low.
The real problem was that Yena's cosplay count was even lower than Leo's.
"There'll be one. There always has been. Me."
"I don't see any."
"...There'll be one."
Yena's expression turned dead serious. She too began shoving through the crowd at speed, searching for herself. But it remained a hard find.
"There has to be one... there's no way I don't exist..."
Leaving her murmuring beside me, I walked a little toward the densest cluster of cosplayers. Apparently operated by whole teams at a time, cosplayers of every description had gathered in one place — there was even a boss monster.
KWAHAAAAA!
'...That's Sgaredo.'
A blinding-white hatchling let out a roar. Whether they'd recorded Sgaredo's cry directly or not, the speaker poured out a startlingly vivid, oppressive presence — but thanks to Sre's adorable face, the crowd loved it all the more.
Come to think of it, it had been quite a while since Sre fell asleep. Sleep was all well and good, but sooner or later she'd have to wake up, whether she wanted to or not.
"FOUND ONE!"
Yena's shout pierced straight through my ears. For a moment the gazes of everyone nearby snapped toward us, but the place was so deafeningly loud that it didn't draw much lasting attention. Once the stares had settled, Yena — her face hidden under a long-brimmed hat — cleared her throat.
"Ahem. See? There. Look, look. I told you I'd be here."
"Where?"
"Over~ there."
At the far edge of the cosplay teams, set well apart from where the cameras swarmed, stood a woman with a black ponytail and crimson eyes. Dressed in a heavily revealing assassin's outfit, she gave an emerald-green dagger a graceful twirl. Her face looked nothing like Yena's, but the costume was clearly labored over — barely distinguishable from Yena's outfit in DeoEn.
Yena's eyes lit up.
"See? Knew there was no way I didn't exist."
"Of course. You're plenty famous, Yena."
"...Are you making fun of me right now?"
"Perish the thought."
Yena was, by most measures, famous. True, she was endlessly trotted out on community boards and fan sites as a point of comparison against me — but forty to fifty thousand average viewers and three million subscribers were nothing to sneeze at. With a rather pretty face, genuine skill, and a gift for talk, she ranked among the very best of DeoEn's countless streamers.
Yena set off with a delighted expression.
"That settles it! I'm going over to say hi!"
"Huh?"
"You wait here, Lily. If anyone catches us together, they might get suspicious."
Feel free to look around in the meantime~
With that, Yena darted off toward her other self. Left alone, I turned my head toward the cosplayers.
There was actually something I'd been hoping to see. Might as well enjoy the view.
"Excuse me."
Just as I was about to start walking, someone addressed me.
...A man absolutely plastered head to toe in Lily merch.
He wore a short-sleeved T-shirt with my face printed on it, and the phone case in his hand bore my likeness too. His shoes had me on them as well, and I'd wager the backpack slung over his back had me on it too. The one silver lining was that he looked reasonably normal. If he'd been huffing "hoo, hoo" while clutching a pillow printed with my face, I'd have gotten chills down my spine.
Of course, looking normal was by no means the same as looking handsome.
'Just an ordinary fan, that's all.'
Surely my fanbase wasn't entirely made up of people like this... right?
"...?"
"Would you happen to take a picture with me?"
The man held up his phone the way one holds a camera.
...He's taken me for a Lily cosplayer. The reason he doesn't recognize me must be the cap shading half my face and the black mask. Besides, the very idea of Lily existing in real life is absurd on its face.
"Hmm..."
Suddenly, I found myself curious. What would happen if this man learned that I was the real Lily?
I was curious — but I didn't act on it. Some things are better left as anticipation, and most of those stories tend not to end well.
"I'm sorry."
Jolt.
At my light, polite bow, the man's whole body trembled as if in convulsions. Far too extreme a reaction for a simple refusal.
"Oh! Yes! Of course! My apologies!"
The man scurried away as if fleeing for his life.
"?"
What was that about?
Watching the cosplayers — the 'cosers' — was actually rather fun. They hadn't merely thrown on similar outfits; armed with iconic lines and signature techniques, they performed as though they truly were the characters. Handled carelessly, it could have been painfully cringeworthy, but they'd clearly rehearsed, because it didn't come across as awkward at all.
"Sorry. I wasn't trying to sneak off, honestly."
"Lily!"
Right now, the Lily coser and the Yena coser were reenacting one of our 'iconic moments' together: the day I first went to the harbor with Yena. A sailor event had triggered, I'd beaten a rotten sailor half to death and earned the Empire's ire — and I'd handed Yena a straw hat and told her to get lost, as I recall. Looking back, that was probably the moment our friction with the Empire first began.
Clap clap clap clap.
WAAAH!
The crowd ringing us erupted in delight. It felt like we'd wandered into a theater performance.
"If people knew the real thing was standing here, they'd go berserk, wouldn't they?"
"Beyond berserk. The whole stadium might flip upside down."
People were already going wild over the coser Lily over there — imagine if they learned that the Lily from DeoEn had stepped out into reality. I'd been through something similar already, so I could picture it, but reality might yet hold surprises.
'The shockwave might be even bigger.'
Yena fiddled with her phone for a moment, then looked up at me.
"Let's head in. They're ready."
"Right."
We entered the stadium together.
The interior was vast. Built specifically for the DCK, it was apparently rented out for other sporting events the rest of the year, then converted into a full-blown tournament arena once the DCK season rolled around. Seating that could comfortably hold tens of thousands, convenience facilities dotted throughout.
At the center, the connection pods were arranged like the seat of a temple — and in the temple's very heart stood the championship trophy, gleaming in the sunlight. A radiant cup that only the victor of this tournament could claim. Perhaps because I'd lifted something like it once before, back at the Mock Siege Battle, the feeling stirring in my chest was unlike anything else.
"Let's rest for a bit before we go in. You can take your mask off here."
Before heading to the VIP seats, Yena guided me up to an observation deck.
Creeeak...
A viewing gallery open only to VIPs. I walked to the railing — from here, all of downtown Seoul spread out before my eyes — took off my mask, and soaked in the view for a while.
Then I turned back to look at Yena.
"I can't wait. To see what unfolds."