The Room You Can Only Leave by Being Honest

We decided to start by searching the room.

The entire chamber was carved from white marble, a space of blinding, pristine white. Stones that looked like luminescent crystals were set into the ceiling at intervals, bathing the interior in a glow as bright as any lamp.

"There's a huge boulder over here."

Opposite the door we had come through, a massive boulder sat against the wall. It was enormous — easily the size of three cars stacked on top of one another.

"Want to try moving it?"

If we could shift the rock, another passage might open up behind it. It was huge enough that it might not budge at all, but we figured we should at least try. Dana and I put our full strength into pushing.

"It's not moving."

This wasn't some figure of speech about shoving a boulder with an egg. The rock showed no intention of going anywhere. We would probably have to wait until we reunited with the others and try again with everyone's strength combined.

Aside from that, the room was completely empty.

Except for that inscription, that is.

"I'm sorry. This is all my fault."

Dana apologized in a gloomy voice.

"Don't be. It's not like you chose to get pulled in here."

The room had swallowed us whole, sucking us in as if it meant to devour us. Like a living thing.

"For now, let's trust Faran and the other adventurers and wait it out."

"Okay..."

On the other side of that door, they were surely doing everything they could to get us out. Unless we found something we could actually do from in here, waiting for a rescue ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was our only real option.

But we still had one method left to try.

"Could that inscription be the way out of this room?"

Dana pointed at the writing on the wall.

"What does it even mean, being honest about everything?"

It said we could leave if we were honest — but "everything" was a pretty sweeping word. I had no idea what, exactly, we were supposed to be honest about.

"Then should we try being honest, just like it says?"

"What should we even talk about?"

"We take turns asking each other questions, and we answer them honestly."

What Dana was describing was the kind of truth game everyone knows. And if this really was a room where only the truth could be spoken, it would be the perfect place to play.

"Alright. Let's give that a shot."

At the moment, it was the only method we had left to try. Running a few experiments couldn't hurt.

"Before we start, though, we should probably check what happens if we aren't honest..."

There was a chance that lying would trigger a curse, or something equally unpleasant. We needed to test that part — but not knowing what the risk actually was made me hesitate.

"I'll try it! I am a woman. Huh? I was trying to say I was a man..."

Dana jumped straight into the experiment. Not a shred of hesitation.

"So you physically can't lie, even if you want to."

This really was the perfect place for a game of truth.

"Let me ask a question first!"

Dana clenched both hands into tight fists and looked straight at me.

Is she nervous? Why would she be nervous?

Seeing her that tense put a little pressure on me. What kind of question had she prepared?

"H-how do you... how do you see me?"

I had been worried that look of hers meant she was about to ask something weird, but thankfully it was a perfectly ordinary question.

"Dana, you're an outstanding adventurer with the potential to become the strongest warrior there is."

I had been terrified I would accidentally mention what I had seen of her in the bushes last night, so I blurted out the first thing I actually thought about her on a regular basis.

"Really? You think I could become that?"

Dana looked genuinely surprised, as if my answer had caught her completely off guard.

The fighting she had shown in the dungeon today was already more than enough proof of what she could become. And more than that — I had seen, in the game itself, just how far she was capable of growing. Her becoming the strongest tank in the world was, as far as I was concerned, a foregone conclusion.

"Yeah. You're already working so hard. You'll be an even greater warrior someday."

"Hehe. I'm so happy. Okay, your turn, Lord Alvin! Ask me anything!"

I decided to keep my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠question simple. In that case, why not ask her the same thing?

"Dana, what do you think of me?"

"Uh... what?"

I had thought it was a light question. But Dana said nothing for a long moment, clearly struggling with how to answer. I could practically hear her eyes darting back and forth. She turned her face away from mine and clamped both hands over her mouth. When I kept looking at her, though, she finally opened it.

"I... at first I thought you were just what everyone said. The Gilbert family's good-for-nothing wastrel. But you weren't like that at all, and it surprised me. You respected me. You looked at me as a warrior, and that... that moved me. And somehow you knew exactly when I really needed help. You reached out your hand. Even when I turned you down, you kept giving me chances, saying you believed in me. I didn't know a person who trusted me that much could even exist..."

The words came pouring out of Dana as if a dam had burst. And the longer she went on, the faster she talked.

"You never once flinched in front of veteran adventurers. You led them instead, and I thought that was so cool. I hoped... I hoped you'd lead me like that too, from now on."

"And you're ridiculously handsome, and honestly I fall asleep every night thinking about you, and I keep wondering if it's even okay to think about someone of your station like that, but I have to be honest right now so I guess I don't have a choice? That's how it is, right? Right? Yeah. I don't have a choice. Hehehehehe."

Dana had slipped into a world of her own, rambling without any brakes. Her face was flushed, and she wore a strange little smile. Then she grabbed my shoulders.

"What you did to me was so intense I can't forget it. That first time we sparred. I felt this thrilling sense of destiny, I guess? Combat used to be like a trauma for me. But fighting you opened up a whole new world. No — a whole new kind of happiness."

My survival instinct started screaming that if this kept going, something terrible was going to happen. I needed to calm her down.

A deep rumble shuddered through the room.

Is Dana's honesty actually working?

The vibrations grew stronger, until it felt like an earthquake. The possibility that the door might open was suddenly very real. If we just kept going like this, it might actually work. And once that thought took hold, I couldn't bring myself to stop her.

Dana didn't seem to notice the room changing around her at all. She was completely gone, lost in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her own head. Still gripping my shoulders, she climbed on top of me and wrapped both arms around my neck.

Wait.

"Haa... it feels so good being this close to you. Huff... haa. I want to stay stuck to your side like this every single night. And just like when you hit me the first time we met, every night I want you to take my ass and—"

The thought that this was about to go very, very badly had just finished flooding my brain when—

BOOM!

The door we had come through burst open. More accurately, it shattered, the wreckage flying deep into the room. Chunks of stone clattered across the floor near the entrance.

"Cough, cough."

Dust from the destroyed door filled the chamber. Through that haze, I could make out our companions. Faran and the adventurers were standing there.

"Young Master!"

Faran came running toward me. The timing could not have been worse. My reputation as a wastrel was already bad enough that I might have been fine on my own — but Dana was currently sitting on top of me with her arms wrapped around my neck. It was the perfect situation to be completely misunderstood.

The adventurers and Faran drew closer.

"Are you unharmed? ...Hmm?"

Faran had spotted Dana on top of me. The adventurers already knew the rumors about me well enough that they seemed content to pretend they hadn't seen a thing.

"What were you doing, if I may ask?"

Faran, however, was not. She knew I had only been pretending to be a wastrel all this time. She knew that my actions always had a calculation and a reason behind them. And more than anything, I was the one who had freed her from everything that had bound her. That was why her faith in me ran so deep it bordered on deification.

And that person was currently rolling around on the floor with Dana?

Of course she couldn't make sense of it. This was a dungeon — a battlefield where you could never afford to let your guard down. On top of that, Dana and I had been trapped in an unknown sealed room, waiting to be rescued. The Alvin she knew would never have done something like this.

I could feel her gaze asking me for an explanation. Dana must have felt it too, because she startled with embarrassment and scrambled off me.

If I let this sit, the misunderstanding would only pile up, so I decided to clear it up myself. Even if I brushed it off as none of her concern, Faran might have accepted it — but doing that would have sat wrong with my conscience. I had already decided to start treating this place as more real. Faran was someone who deserved to be respected.

"We were testing the rules of this room, trying to find a way out."

I pointed at the inscription as I spoke.

"The rules of this room, sir?"

The adventurers and Faran all looked where I was pointing.

"A room you can only leave by being honest...?"

Faran read the words aloud.

"So Dana and I were taking turns asking each other questions and talking about the answers."

Faran seemed to sink into thought for a moment. Then she walked over to the inscription. As an expert in exploration and traps, she looked like she wanted to examine the writing for herself. She reached out and touched the letters.

And then, to my surprise, the words vanished.

"This appears to be a fake, sir."

Huh?

Then Faran's gaze shifted. She was looking at Dana. And I knew that look. I knew it very well.

It was the same look she had worn the day she decided to assassinate me.