Not Aisha, But Aisha
1. Acknowledged.
Scrreeeech.
(Photo: The moment the expulsion vote was finalized — 16 votes to 4.)
Between the Lily business and now going after the newly returned Cheonma, I figured this was finally crossing the line — and Vlack actually pulled the trigger on it.
Dude has had an absolute mountain of controversies going back years, but he never got cut, so I thought he was just too stubborn to let go. Turns out he simply couldn't afford to keep him anymore, lol.
For the record, Black Moon votes are executive-only, and each vote is weighted by guild shares.
Taebaek should have had the advantage with the biggest stake — but the second his shares evaporated, so did his head. LMAO.
Scrreeeech.
"Hmm..."
Nothing useful here.
She'd hoped to dig up some kind of lead, but the thread was nothing but gossip and gallows humor. She scrolled on anyway. Maybe a little further.
"...Not this stuff!"
I need to find a trace of oppa — anything at all!
So what if he went through something terrible and came back... strange!
'I can bring him back. Sure, plenty of those ignorant Sonjabi ran off at the mouth and abandoned ship — but there are still enough of us...'
As the head of the fan club, leader of the hilt-bound faithful, she knew.
Oppa hadn't gone mad on his own. He hadn't chosen to do any of those bizarre things.
He'd simply wielded a demon-possessed sword for far too long, and the backlash had seeped into him. That was all!
DeoEn was, after all, a world where mental penalties were a matter of course.
Leo and Candy Star were living proof. Even the legendary Lily herself.
And now, freshly returned — Cheonma, of all people...
...Anyway. Yes. That's the point.
Which meant oppa — once devoured by the penalty — must finally be free of it now that the sword was gone.
There might be some lingering aftereffects, but with proper care, he'd shake them off in no time.
The problem was that in order to take care of him, she first had to find out where he was...
"......Lily."
She — Aisha — stared at the image on her screen: Lily, calmly hefting Black Destroyer.
Whatever else could be said, the culprit who had dragged Sword God oppa down into the abyss was Lily.
And yet she couldn't bring herself to resent her. Couldn't hate her.
Most of the remaining Sonjabi had turned their backs and become her anti-fans. But their head, Aisha, was different.
'Lily did everything she could. If anything, she drove the demon out of oppa.'
She knew it because they had fought side by side, once, during the World Tree crisis.
Oppa had been rough, crude, and unsettling to be around in those days — but only because the demon had nested inside him.
Now the demon was gone. Which meant Lily had no reason left to despise him either.
"...Honestly, she was kind of cool, too."
Not a candle to Sword God oppa, of course — but Lily's fighting, the way she moved, had been genuinely impressive.
Especially that moment. The spear tip resting against her throat, those eyes glaring into hers...
"Nngh."
But still not as much as oppa. That was the one thing she would never concede.
"I have to find him even one day sooner — so he can help, even a little, when the Great Cataclysm comes—"
Scrreeeech.
...!
Grrrk.
TATATATATAK!
Tatatak...
A pause.
Why, obviously Sword God—
'Sword God...?'
"......"
The conditions: both fighters wielding ordinary weapons. No artifacts, no legendary blades — a contest decided by nothing but raw skill and technique.
Any other day, against any other name, the answer would have been instant. Sword God oppa.
But—
'Can oppa actually beat Lily?'
A dark night sky beyond the window of her high-rise apartment. Aisha stared at the monitor, and for once, the answer would not come.
Because she had watched those two fight from closer than anyone else alive.
Tap, tap.
Why, obviously Sword God—
Obviously—
Tack.
......
"...What am I even doing right now."
It made her furious.
Aisha shut the computer off entirely.
Trying to gather intel in a place like this was a waste of life. She should have known better.
"Haah... might as well drink."
She kicked her chair back in irritation, scratched at her head for no reason, and opened the refrigerator.
No alcohol.
Had she finished it all last time? She was fairly sure she'd bought plenty back then...
"I'll just order some."
Aisha flopped face-down onto her bed, twisted her head sideways, and tapped at her phone. Delivery in thirty minutes. She'd just close her eyes for a moment and...
Bzzzzz—!
"Hnk?!"
She jolted awake at the vibration. Floating on the phone still clutched in her hand was a single messenger notification:
"...It's been thirty minutes already?"
Must be the exhaustion. She'd only closed her eyes for a second, and half an hour had vanished.
Yaaawn...
Stumbling toward the front door, she took hold of the handle.
"Eat first... then this time I'll search inside DeoEn itself. Something might turn up there..."
BANG!
"?"
Voives drifted from beyond the corridor. A pillar blocked her view of them, but from the sound of it, there were two women out there.
Not many women live on the twelfth floor.
Most of the residents on twelve were men, and since Aisha focused almost exclusively on DeoEn, she rarely had occasion to meet any of them anyway. As far as she knew, one of the streamers lived on this floor, but...
Right — Yena.
The streamer and assassin-class ranker, Yena. A fellow resident of the twelfth floor; they'd crossed paths a handful of times and exchanged a few words.
They'd never so much as brushed shoulders in DeoEn, though, so they weren't particularly close.
Did she mention having a little sister? I could've sworn she said she was an only child.
Then again, the other woman had called her "Yena" — maybe it wasn't a family thing after all.
Rustle.
Aisha picked up her delivery bag and turned away. It was their private business; she had no intention of prying.
Time to eat and—
...Lily?
That Lily?
A wave of doubt — nearly denial — washed over her, even as the puzzle pieces clicked into place one by one. And despite herself, Aisha turned her head back.
All the mountains of information she had compiled on Lily.
A user and streamer barely a few months past her debut, who had already weathered a volume of incidents and scandals that no newcomer should ever touch.
And at the center of every single one of those incidents stood one person.
'Yena.'
Yena had been there for nearly all of it. Starting her stream — together. Diving into dungeons — together. Farming gear, the Mock Siege Battle, PVP — every last one of them.
Even at the DCK live event, which the public only half-believed but which Aisha knew for near-certain — the two of them had been there. Together.
"....."
...Really?