Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 6 (20 page)

Most of their enemies were lower-class adventurers, but their numbers were overwhelming.

“Please get out of here! Run, hurry!”

Lilly’s face turned blue as she used every bit of air in her lungs, pleading with them.

There was only one reason why these kind people had come so deep into enemy territory: her. All the damage they took, every injury they sustained was her fault.

She yelled with all of her might in hopes that the battle would stop. It just so happened that Hestia was holding her head in both hands behind a storage box near the same window and heard Lilly’s cries.

“Miss Supporter?!”

“Lady Hestia!”

Nahza was using one stack of boxes as cover; Hestia had been even farther behind her. Keeping her head low, Hestia went to Lilly’s window.

The two were reunited, face-to-face through a hole in the thick stone wall.

“Don’t worry about Lilly! Please escape now!”

“I can’t do that! I’m not leaving this place until you come with us!”

“WHY?! Lilly won’t cause any more trouble! Lady Hestia won’t get dragged into any more bad situations without Lilly! So please…!”

The two young ladies argued back and forth, stay or go, through the iron bars of the window until Hestia screamed back:

“We’re going to face Apollo in a War Game!”

“?!”

“It’s a Castle Siege! Two
Familias
will collide head-to-head with their full strength!”

Lilly was lost for words as she heard Hestia’s blitz of an explanation.

The thought of
Hestia Familia
, which only had one member, taking on the full force of
Apollo Familia
in a War Game was beyond belief. Bell was going to have to attack a castle by himself?

Hestia paused for a moment to catch her breath, not taking her eyes off of the flabbergasted Lilly.

“I’m doing everything I can to give Bell a chance to win!”

“Eh…”

“Right now, that boy is going through hell to prepare for the War Game! But it won’t be enough! We need you! It’s hopeless unless you’re with us!”

—What was that?

They need Lilly in order to win the War Game?

She didn’t believe her. Lilly always held other people back—how could she possibly be the key to victory?

Other people had used her as a doormat, taken advantage of her at every turn, and stolen many things from her. How could one prum girl trapped in this dark reality possibly be of any use?

Why was she worth saving?

Hestia was spouting nonsense.

“We can’t win without you! It has to be you, no one else!”

The young girl objected.

She had never been needed before, and yet this goddess said she was.

That boy was the only one who ever helped her, who ever said that she was needed—now it was time to help him.

Hestia wanted Lilly to come to Bell’s aid.

“Please, help us
^____
help Bell!”

She ran.

She ran as if shot out of a cannon.

Hestia’s pleas on replay in the back of her mind, she zipped through the dim stone corridor doors of
Soma Familia
’s storage facility with nary a sound.

It wasn’t something that weak little Lilly should be able to do. How could she possibly be able to save Bell? Hestia overestimated her worth despite her divinity.

But…!

She said Lilly was needed.

She asked for Lilly’s help.

She wanted Lilly, no one else.

No one had ever wanted her before, no one had needed her. But now, there was.

“Wah…!”

Her vision blurred, head feverish. Her chest felt so tight that her ribs might strangle her lungs.

There was no way to describe the onslaught of emotions that tore through her. Her only desire now was to help Hestia and those fighting for her in the courtyard. And to do that, she had to move.

With Zanis at the helm, there was only one way to stop this battle: appeal to the only person with more authority in the
Familia
than its leader, the god Soma. Lilly desperately searched through her memories of the day she was brought here and remembered seeing the deity in the building. He was also her only hope for being released from her contract with the
Familia
. She had to persuade Soma.

She used her memories to piece together a small map of the facility. There was an observation tower that overlooked the entrance to the underground holding cells. She was almost certain that the highest room of this tower belonged to Soma himself. That’s where she’d find him.

Leaving clear tears in her wake, Lilly rushed to find the stairwell that would lead to her god.

“They don’t know when to quit…”

Zanis watched the battle in the courtyard unfold from the roof of the storage facility.

Soma Familia
’s soma wine cellar was a central tower at the front with five more towers on each side encompassing an open courtyard below. His subordinates were engaging intruders who had been forced underneath one of the lookout towers in the corner of the courtyard.

Zanis chuckled to himself as the group of less than ten desperately tried to fight back. He silently applauded them for making it this far despite the overwhelming odds.

If he were able to capture the young goddess below, it would be easy to strike a profitable deal with Apollo. He was already working out the finer details in his mind as he ordered his subordinates to surround the enemy.

“…?”

Zanis watched the battle like a hawk until a flash of color caught his attention.

It was Lilly, on her way to the main tower.

What the hell is Chandra doing?!
he silently snapped, his cheek twitching in agitation. But his smile returned a moment later.

“Interesting. What do you think you can do?”

Leaving one of his high-ranking subordinates in charge, Zanis took off to intercept Lilly.

Lilly ran through the vast complicated passages of the main tower.

At long last, she found the stairwell leading to the second floor.

Emerging from the narrow confines of the lower floors to this new open space felt extremely liberating. The lower hallways were narrow and there were many doors leading to small rooms and other passages. She could see blue sky outside the open windows and the candlestick-style magic-stone lamps were bright and clean.

Soma’s room was on the third floor.

Every adventurer who should have been on guard had gone to join the fight. It was eerily quiet.

“Where do you think you’re going, Erde?”

“?!”

A voice came from behind Lilly as she ran down the open corridor.
CRASH!
A window out of her line of sight was destroyed.

It was Zanis. The upper-class adventurer had broken the second-story window before jumping through. Casually stepping on shards of broken glass, the man taunted Lilly again.

—He found me!

Willing more speed out of her weak legs, Lilly zipped around the corner and out of sight.

“The stairwell in that direction only goes up?”

“?!”

Lilly suddenly felt a pressure from behind her before she was tapped on the shoulder.

The palm of Zanis’s hand was all it took to send the girl crashing to the floor.

Nauseating pain overtook her as her body tumbled forward on the stone floor. Fighting through it, Lilly climbed to her feet and started running once again.

“Fu…ha-ha-ha-ha-hahahaha?! Now now, Erde, what’s the rush?!”

The man’s menacing laughter sounded from behind her. Lilly frowned and continued pressing onward.

A moment later, the man’s boot plowed straight into her ribs.

“Agh!”

“Don’t tell me, you’re going to try to meet with Lord Soma? Pointless! Absolutely pointless!”

His kick sent her face-first toward the wall. Fighting to find her balance, Lilly kept moving forward.

Her thin legs reached their limit and Lilly had to thrust her hand out to the wall to catch herself.

“What makes you think that he’ll listen to you? The only thing our god cares about is his wine!”

“Ighhh…!”

“Runts like you are nothing but background noise to him! No matter how much you revere him, asking for help will leave you with nothing but dismay!”

He let Lilly gain some distance before catching up and striking her again. Then he’d do some more taunting and repeat the process over and over. Be it his fists or his feet, one strike was enough to send Lilly’s small body flying in any direction he wanted.

It’d become a game to him. His black shadow would overtake Lilly, then he’d decide how to hit, enjoy her squeal of pain, and then look down over her as she got up and kept going forward.

All the while he would jubilantly remark about how all her effort was for nothing.

“You’re a strange one, Erde! I thought you were smarter than this! I liked that cold look in your eyes, like you hated the world and everything in it!”

In her darkest days, she had tried many times to escape the abyss only to have her connection to
Soma Familia
drag her right back in. The shell of a man who was Zanis sneered at Lilly.

However, the tears welling up in Lilly’s eyes were not caused by her dark past but by the pain coursing through her body. She would never show tears of sadness again. She had already shed far too many.

Overcoming Zanis’s physical and verbal attacks, Lilly pressed on. Forward, forward until she finally found the stairwell and climbed to the third floor.

There were only a few walls on this floor, making one large room with one area portioned off—Soma’s private room. Lilly channeled all the strength she had left into her legs and made a break for it.

“Three, two…WHAM!”

“AGUHH!”

Zanis counted down and playfully announced his own kick, hitting Lilly right between the shoulder blades with all of his strength. The girl’s body whipped through the air like a rag doll.

However, his kick sent her hurtling toward the door to the private chamber. Lilly folded her arms across her chest and used that momentum to break it open.

SLAM!
Lilly tumbled into the chamber as the doors creaked on their hinges after slamming into the walls on both sides.

“…”

Soma was there.

He stood in front of the wide balcony, tending to many different kinds of plants growing in the sunlight.

He paid absolutely no attention to the sounds of battle outside the window or even to Lilly’s loud entrance. The amount of water that each plant received, future ingredients for his wine, was the only thing on his mind at the moment.

“Lord Soma! Lord Soma! Please listen to what Lilly has to say!”

The deity kept his back to her as Lilly tried to peel her injury-ridden body off the stone floor.

At first, the god continued working in his slightly dirty robe despite Lilly’s pleas until finally turning around with a slightly annoyed look on his face.

Zanis had entered the chamber—it was he who Soma was looking at through his long bangs.

“This is much too bothersome, Zanis. I left all trivial matters in your hands.”

Ignored by her own god. Lilly was shocked.

Zanis enjoyed the look on her face to no end, gleefully chuckling under his breath. He kept his eyes on the girl and said:

“I apologize for the abruptness, Lord Soma. It appears that one Lilliluka Erde wishes to speak with you directly. Won’t you lend her your ears?”

Zanis spoke with a calm and almost mocking tone, as if he knew what was about to happen.

Looking even more perturbed, Soma shifted his gaze down toward Lilly.

The girl managed to force her aching body into a kneeling position.

“I beg you, Lord Soma. Please bring an end to the battle taking place outside—please save Lady Hestia and those fighting alongside her! Please, please…!”

Soma’s cheek twitched as if Lilly’s voice had hurt his ears. He slowly squared his shoulders in front of her.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the expression on his face showed that he believed it to be a waste of time.

“What good are the words of a child who succumbs to wine so…easily?”

“—”

Lilly fell silent after hearing Soma’s monotone words. A cold chill swept through her veins.

But it was the look in his eyes that did it, made Lilly realize the truth.

Soma was disappointed. Disappointed in his own followers, disappointed in the world of Gekai.

The Divine Wine, soma, had caused
Soma Familia
to collapse from within. Just as he said before, the children succumbed to the power of the drink he was giving them as a reward. They soon began fighting amongst themselves for more, became selfish beyond belief.

From the god Soma’s point of view, all he did was reward them with delicious wine for their services. But rather than thank him, they turned on one another for more drunken pleasure. He had become disillusioned by their primitive reaction to his more refined methods.

—Soma harbored no ill will. He had no urge to inflict pain. At this point, he had no interest in any followers like Lilly at all. He was completely detached.

The divine being who’d had enough of the crude people of Gekai continued to produce soma and reward the children who made it possible for him to focus on his craft.