Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 2 (29 page)

That was how Bell had managed to do the impossible and cover that much ground to come straight here.

Bell forced a smile, scratching the back of his head as though what he did was no big deal. However, something inside Lilly snapped when she saw that.

“…Why?”

“Eh? Did you say something, Lilly?”

“Why did you do it?”

The floodgates were open; Lilly’s mouth started moving on its own.

There was something else she should be saying right now, but other words were spilling out.

“Why did you save Lilly? Why didn’t you just abandon Lilly?”

“…What?”

“There’s no way you couldn’t have realized by now Lilly was fooling you! Does Mr. Bell think Lilly wanted to surprise him by taking that knife, or something stupid like that?!”

The confused look on Bell’s face only served to make Lilly’s voice even more heated.

Lilly’s sudden rage burned through the last wall of self-restraint.

“What are you, Mr. Bell? An idiot? A buffoon?! An airheaded moron beyond all hope of recovery?!”

“Moron……?! Wait, Lilly, calm down…?!”

“Impossible!! Mr. Bell doesn’t notice anything?! Lilly took money for herself at the Exchange! Mr. Bell’s and Lilly’s shares should have been fifty-fifty, but it was closer to forty-sixty! There were times Lilly got greedy and made it thirty-seventy! Lilly charged you more than double the price of items when Lilly prepared them! Twelve of them! Lilly doesn’t know how many times Lilly was shocked by your lack of knowledge about items, or how careless you are with equipment!!”

Bell’s mouth twitched as all this information suddenly came to light.

Lilly would not stop. A little voice in the back of her head was frantically saying “Stop!” but it was no use. She kept on confessing to everything.

“Do you understand now?! Lilly is a bad, bad person! A thief! Lilly’s a piece-of-shit prum who lied to you over and over! Lilly’s not worthy to be your supporter!”

“U-um…”

“Even still…even still, Mr. Bell saved Lilly?!”

“Y-yes.”

“WHY?!”

Lilly was gasping for breath as she looked at Bell.

She had no clue what she was hoping to hear.

But her heart was beating a mile a minute, faster than it should be even now.

A little frightened by Lilly’s barrage, Bell opened his mouth to speak almost as a reflex and said these words:

“B-because you’re a girl.”

—HUH?? Lilly’s entire body felt like it was on fire.

Her fists clenched; her shoulders rose to her ears in anger.

Her emotions were boiling over, and she had no idea why.

She couldn’t understand this explosion of discontent.

“ID-IOT!! Mr. Bell is an IDIOT!!! Saying something like that again, it’s the same as before?! Would Mr. Bell save ANY woman just because?! Lilly can’t believe this!! You’re horrible!! Playboy!! Pervert!! Enemy of all women!!!!”

For some reason, tears leaked out of Lilly’s eyes during her rant.

She was in no position to be saying any of it, but she unloaded all of her discontent on the boy standing in front of her.

Discontent? About what?

He saved her; just what did she have to be discontented about?

What was this flame in her chest—no, her whole body—trying to say?

She didn’t have any idea.

Bell withstood the latest tirade, Lilly once again panting for breath.

Relaxing his shoulders and smiling, Bell leaned forward and placed his hand gently on the cheek of the dog-earless Lilly.

“Well then, because you’re Lilly.”

“—”

Chestnut eyes went as wide as they could go.

“I saved you because you’re you, Lilly. I didn’t want you to disappear.”

“Fuu, ehh……!”

“There’s nothing else to it. Why would I need a better reason to save Lilly?”

Her tear ducts gave out.

A waterfall of tears gushed from her eyes, flowing down her face in all directions.

Lilly couldn’t hold back any longer and cried out.

“
Hic
…waaaaaah!”

“Lilly, if you’re in trouble, come talk to me. I’m an idiot, so I won’t know unless you tell me.”

“
Hic
…! Waaahhh…”

“I’ll help you, you can count on it.”

Lilly dove into his chest and hung on tight.

His metallic armor got in the way, but she didn’t care. She embraced him with all her might, her hands around his back.

She could feel the palms of Bell’s warm hands gently stroking her head and back over and over again.

She knew. She noticed.

Bell had thought of her when he rushed to this room.

His light clothes were trashed, torn to shreds.

The pale skin showing through the holes was covered in cuts and bruises.

Lilly knew that he had taken on hordes of monsters to come to her side.

She wanted to call out to him, to say something to acknowledge what Bell had done.

Lilly wanted him to accept the one thing she hated most: Lilly.

“Sorry…so, so sorry…!”

“…It’s okay.”

The sound of Lilly’s cries echoed far and wide.

The scene of a giant ant massacre filled one corner of the Dungeon. Slowly but surely, their magic stones broken one by one, the slain killer ants turned to ash amid smoke rising from still-burning embers strewn about the room.

The ashes slowly fell off the crying girl’s face, along with her tears.

The human kept the small prum girl in a tight embrace, the same calm smile on his face.

The sky was clear.

Just like on the day that someone called out to him, not a cloud in the sky.

Bell walked toward Babel Tower, his white hair bathed in sunlight.

Two days had passed since then.

He hadn’t seen any trace of Lilly since they broke up.

The room she had used up to that point had been completely cleared out; she’d left no messages.

There was no point going to
Soma Familia
for help. Lilly had disappeared altogether.

He felt worried and anxious.

He didn’t know how many times he had considered searching the city.

But at the same time, Bell had a feeling.

A feeling that he would see her again soon.

It really was just a thought, but he kept to his usual routine.

So he could be found easily.

“!”

Bell stopped. And then started right back up again.

He caught a glimpse of something at Babel’s west gate: a small figure standing still, wearing a cream robe.

The figure’s hands were clasped around straps of a backpack while she looked at the ground.

The figure’s round, cute eyes were clearly visible between bangs in the sunlight.

Bell set out toward the figure at a brisk walk. He didn’t want to scare her or make her jump.

The prum girl noticed him in no time.

Her shoulders dropped to an almost pitiful level. She stood still as she watched him approach.

“……”

“……”

They were close enough to shake hands—if only one of them would reach out.

Lilly looked up and opened her mouth to speak over and over again, but each time she couldn’t get any words out.

She couldn’t start a conversation; it was very unlike her.

Bell waited patiently for Lilly to speak, but seeing her struggling with it, he flashed a quick smile before starting the conversation himself.

“Miss Supporter! Miss Supporter! Are you looking for an adventurer?”

“Huh?”

Lilly looked up again.

Bell’s big grin reflected off Lilly’s round, chestnut-colored eyes.

“Are you confused? This is a pretty simple situation, you know. An adventurer in need of a supporter has come to you, asking to buy your services.”

Lilly realized what was going on.

Her eyes filled with tears of joy. Her cheeks turned a warm shade of pink.

Bell shyly held out his right hand, as though he were embarrassed.

“I was wondering if you’d be willing to prowl the Dungeon with me.”

Today was a fresh start.

Bell and Lilly really joined forces—their own two-person party.

Their relationship had been reset.

A new beginning.

“—Yes! Please take Lilly with you!”

With a smile as big as a sunflower, Lilly took Bell’s outstretched hand in her own.

Epilogue

“He’s gone…” Aiz quietly said to herself.

She was on the tenth-level floor. She stood alone in the fog, surrounded by the corpses of all the monsters she had slain.

She had seen the boy through the fog not too long ago, but the moment he cleared the next set of oncoming monsters, he’d left the room as if he were shot out of a cannon.

At Eina’s request, she had collected information from other adventurers about the whereabouts of a white-haired boy, and she finally managed to track him down…only to have him run away from her once again. Her shoulders drooped.

But…

Aiz thought vaguely to herself that maybe he was used to his power.

While she couldn’t be sure because of the fog, she felt as though he was fighting with impatience, full of desperation. And when she cut an opening for him, he shot off like a madman driven by thoughts of something that wasn’t her.

Aiz got the impression that the boy had a reason to rush, but she didn’t know why.

What should I do now…?

She had accepted Eina’s request to confirm the boy’s safety. She should go after him.

However, going after him now would be another wild-goose chase. She was considering her options when suddenly…

Something glinted through the fog.

“…What’s…”

She bent down to pick up the source of the light from the grass. It was an emerald-colored vambrace.

The vambrace, the exact color of Reveria’s and Eina’s eyes, was somewhat the worse for wear. It looked as though it had taken a bad
hit or three before falling off, and the surface was covered in nicks, scratches, and cuts.

But why here?
she wondered to herself before it came to her. “Ah!”

An important thought occurred to her.

“Could this be…?”

—Behind her, a lost needle rabbit hopped around the prairie field on the tenth-level floor of the Dungeon.