NOVEL WEB Chapter 18
Devilla
A colorful blur of red, gold, and black slammed into me, nearly knocking me off my feet. Armored limbs wrapped themselves around my torso, squeezing me tight. While my body’s durability made it difficult to gauge the exact strength of Lucy’s sudden hug, the force of our impact and the faint sounds of protest emanating from her armor implied that I should be thankful for that very same resilience.
“Eena! You came early!”
“I… Yes,” I replied, surprised to find my voice wavering a touch, in the aftermath of her affectionate display. It felt… odd. To be held like this. Like a fluttering in my stomach - warm, but frantic and crying for attention I couldn’t spare.
“What are you doing at the adventurer’s guild, though? I thought you were going to come meet me at the church?”
“I… planned to get myself settled before coming to see you,” I informed her, trying to focus on the redhead’s words rather than our ongoing embrace.
“Settling in?” Lucy inquired, parting from me so that she could meet my gaze with her own. Her hands remained attached to my form, despite the newly created distance, merely shifting their position, from my back to my arms.
“I…” I shook my head, trying to unstick my thoughts. What was wrong with me? Why was I so fixated upon a small measure of physical affection? I was acting as if I’d never been hugged before. Hadn’t I experienced them all the time, back when I was Jacob?
“Eena…?”
“It’s nothing,” I replied, forcing a smile to my lips. Because it was nothing. “You were asking why I’m at the guild, yes? It’s because I wished to join.”
Lucy frowned at me, her hands at last parting from my flesh, to instead settle upon her own hips. “You’re not doing that thing where you pretend everything’s fine even when it isn’t, because you don’t want to worry anyone, are you? Because if people think you’re the sort to suffer in silence, rather than sharing what’s wrong with them, it’ll only make them worry more.”
“I’m not pretending,” I assured her, my smile becoming a touch less strained in the face of her earnest concern. The panicked feeling was almost entirely gone, now, in any case. “I was merely caught off guard. I’m not used to being greeted with such enthusiasm.”
Except from Bailey, perhaps? She had a tendency to wag her tail and lick my face after even the shortest of separations - but, truthfully, even that lacked the impact of Lucy’s hug. Between the horned wolf’s subservient attitude, her preference for a four legged form, and the simple fact that we’d rarely parted for more than a few minutes at a time, Bailey’s reaction to our reunions felt more akin to a pet’s eagerness than a friend’s joy. Meanwhile, Lucy was hitting me with something of a triple punch - a warm embrace, from someone who sincerely wished to befriend me, after a day of everyone being terrified of me.
“I don’t think that’s the sort of thing people normally say with a smile on their face,” Lucy remarked, frowning at me. “But if you say you’re fine, then I won’t push… Though I do want to know why you joined the guild without me! Didn’t I already pledge to vouch for you?”
“Ah…” I winced. She had suggested something of the sort, hadn’t she? In an attempt to incentivize this very visit to Rendra city, if memory served - and I knew full well that it did, considering how easily the conversation flowed into my mind now that I’d been reminded of it. Specifically, she had promised to help me skip the probationary period - the rookie requests, I suppose. It was an offer I had initially dismissed, not wanting anything to do with the Heroine past our coincidental meeting. That resolve had been short lived, mind you, but only because I was too weak of will to continuously deny her heartfelt pleas for a rendezvous.
Then came my dual confrontations with Abigail and Sylvanna, which caused my mindset to shift yet further. Where once I’d planned to run away and begin a new life as an adventurer, now I wished to build a solid foundation of trust with Lucy, so that I could reveal my identity to her without her turning on me. As such, I had nothing but thanks for my past self and her “poor” decision making - at least so far as it applied to this singular instance.
Even so, from start to finish, Lucy’s kind offer of assistance had never been more than an afterthought. And, with everything going on…
“Would you believe that I forgot?”
“You forgot?” Lucy parroted. Her tone, like her expression, was difficult to read, but I was fairly sure it wasn’t irate. A short lived relief. “You promise?”
“Promise…? You make it sound like I have something to gain with such a lie,” I remarked, a furrow of confusion marring my brow. “If I wanted to cover for myself, don’t you think I’d be spinning tales about not wanting to take advantage of your generosity, rather than admitting to an embarrassing oversight?”
“That sort of statement is exactly why I want you to promise me, before the goddess, that you just forgot!” Lucy proclaimed. “Though I guess it also proves you’re telling the truth, since you don’t seem to realize how backwards your way of thinking is… But that doesn’t make me worry any less!”
“Backwards…?” Now I was starting to feel like a parrot. A very confused parrot, who dearly wished to know why Lucy’s requested promise seemed to be escalating in nature. When, precisely, had the goddess come into this?
“Extremely backwards!” Lucy confirmed, thrusting her finger towards me, the tip of it stopping just short of my clavicle. “Eena, there’s no world in which you forgetting about my offer of help would ever upset me! The only one who suffered from that is you - and I can still talk to the guild master once we’re done here, so I don’t think that really counts in the first place! I’m much more worried about you thinking that you could ever impose upon me by taking me up on something I freely offered! Especially when we both know that part of why I offered it was explicitly because I wanted to see you again!”
I blinked, caught off guard by Lucy’s rather passionate declaration of intent. I could feel heat rising to my cheeks as it dawned upon me just what had made her mad - the idea that I valued her time more than my own… Or, rather, the idea that I valued my time less than hers, I suppose. Which meant that the reason she wished me to promise was that she’d already come to the conclusion that I thought less of myself than she did… Not that it was a very hard conclusion to come to, I suppose.
The corners of my lips curled upwards, a soft thrum of joy running through me in the wake of this realization. It wasn’t due to her thoughts on the matter, in and of themselves, mind you - and it certainly wasn’t due to her lecture. I already had a demonic maid muttering about my self-esteem, I didn’t need a naive heroine claiming my thoughts to be backward. But, after a day of dealing with those who quaked in my presence, it was nice to know that Lucy would go so far as to welcome me wasting her time, purely for the sake of the very same company others had been so desperate to avoid.
“Very well,” I acceded. “A promise can be given, if that is what you wish. But as for you helping me with my membership issues - if you truly find my company to be of such worth, I do believe I have a superior suggestion. One that has the added benefit of taking our… beleaguered guildmaster out of the picture.” And spare me from more of his scrutiny.
“Eena…” Lucy’s eyes widened, much to my confusion, and for the briefest moment I saw a flicker of fear pass through her eyes. It was gone so quick I might have thought it a figment of my imagination, if not for the way her voice had wavered when she’d said my name. “I’m happy to hear your ideas, but… Has anyone ever told you that you have a tendency to sound really ominous, sometimes?”
“Only you,” I replied, frowning as I recalled the last instance of this strange pronouncement. Back when I told her we needed to have sex somewhere isolated enough that nobody would hear her scream. “Though I hardly see what’s so ominous about expressing concern for others.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant, Eena…” The look upon Lucy’s face was unnervingly close to defeat, but the smile that followed was so bright as to make me doubt the previous shadows. “It’s fine, though! I already know you’re built a little differently, after all - and I don’t have any intention of rejecting that, or any other part of you! So why don’t we move onto you telling me your idea?”
I regarded Lucy silently for a moment, trying and failing to discern what was going on inside her skull. Eventually, I decided to give up with a shake of my own head, deciding to take Lucy’s words of acceptance to heart - though I’d be applying them to the Heroine, herself, for my part.
“Put simply?” I said, eventually. “I want to earn my place amidst the adventurers. To prove not only my strength, but my commitment. To that end, I believe that completing the rookie requests would be beneficial. But I happen to be in need of a mentor figure, who can vouch for me. One of unassailable character… If you understand my meaning?”
I smiled at Lucy, hoping that my sincere desire for her help would outshine the guilt I felt for my half-truths, at least enough to keep the latter from showing on my face. It wasn’t as if I were lying, per se. I did wish to prove myself, to some degree - to be seen as an adventurer, during my time amidst humanity, and not an unknown variable of frightening power. And Lucy’s help would, of course, be paramount to accomplishing the goal. But, more than that, I wished to prove myself to Lucy. To show her my willingness to work towards my goals, while exposing her to… If not the best side of me, then at least to me as a whole. Because as much as Lucy trusted me right now, as much as she believed in the goodness of my heart, the fact of the matter was that she hardly knew me at all. Without actual experiences to back up her view of me, I feared her good will could easily be overwritten by misconceptions and misunderstandings when my identity was revealed.
Naturally, there was a limit to how much she could learn of me while I was hiding that identity… But if I couldn’t tell her the full truth with words, then I would at least do my best to show her through action. I would spend time with her, allowing her to see my virtues and flaws alike in action. Of course, the latter might well overwhelm the former. She could easily end up with a lower opinion of me, by the end. But that was fine. I didn’t need her to love me. I only needed her to understand me, so that she would recognize my sincerity when I asked her for help with my people.
Which was why I was honestly rather relieved that I could use the rookie requests as an excuse to spend time with her. Otherwise, I would have been forced to stick with my original plan, and agree to join her party. Not an unworkable plot, by any means, but one that would have been harder to pull off, in my opinion. Those misconceptions and misunderstandings, such as accusations of sabotage, could all too easily rear their head if I were to officially join her in a quest to kill myself.
“Well, if that’s how you want to handle it, I definitely wouldn’t mind spending more time with you… But, if possible, I really don’t want it to be limited to just adventuring, though!”
“You want us to spend more time together, afterward?” I questioned, arching an eyebrow. Was this a prelude to her asking me to join her party after all?
“I do!” Lucy confirmed. “Because there’s something I want to do - but it’s something I can’t do without you. Without your willing help, too, so… this isn’t exactly a demand. You can say no, but… Eena… Would you please…”
I tensed, watching Lucy take a deep breath, looking uncharacteristically nervous as she closed her eyes and gathered up her courage. She was obviously gearing up to ask me something big and, no matter what she said to the contrary, I knew I would have no choice but to agree. To do otherwise would endanger our long-term relationship.
“Please go out with me!”
