Chương 73: Run away from exposition, in superspeed

"I guess, the biggest question is… Is it over?" Mary asked, holding her cup with both hands as if afraid the warmth might escape.

"The apocalypse? Did we win? There won't be any monsters anymore? What did you do exactly?"

"Now that I think about it, shouldn't the other nerds also be here for this stuff?" Dennis asked.

"Kinda weird that they're skipping the elf interrogation and doing whatever it is they are doing with the floating people instead."

"They were waiting for you to leave," Mary said, matter-of-factly, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

"You underestimate how scary it is to just be near you. And people do need help. So it's just little old me."

"Huh." They'd skipped their chance of literally figuring out what the fuck was happening with the world just because he was that scary now? Damn, he was cool.

"Nice."

"The apocalypse… is the wrong word," El'el said after mulling the question over.

"Though I understand how it would appear like that for you. The situation in this world is unconventional, to put it mildly. We call it Integration, and normally, it is a relatively harmless process."

"Relatively harmless my ass–""Dennis," Lily interrupted him.

"Please let her speak."

"New worlds appear quite frequently," she continued.

"And it is the work of three representatives of the Law to ensure that their introduction to the branch goes smoothly, among other things. The System Administrator manages the integration of the natives, The High Authority suppresses false-gods and a few other harmful elements if they appear, and The Overseer is… the one who holds the other two accountable, and also has duties concerning the prevention of Heresy and…" She closed her eyes and released a heavy sigh.

"Without going too deep into the responsibilities of each one of them, suffice it to say, The Overseer of this world failed completely and utterly in her duty. The System Administrator didn't even appear as far as I know, and Tar'en did… what he did. I don't know why. I don't know so much of what I was supposed to…" She shook her head.

"I digress. The other duties of The High Authority are controlling The Roads and generally managing the way Integration goes, including but not limited to the right to designate the world as a threat and–" Dennis felt like having a stroke. Lily saw something on his face, and kicked him under the table. He kicked her back. It devolved into a kicking fight, and he did not lose those. With an elaborate leg-parry he gained the upper leg, claiming dominance over the entirety of the undertable space.

With twenty Dex, his legs were like snakes, flowing smoothly in the air without touching the floor even once, untouchable and deadly, going for the weak points. Lily's defenses were full of holes, and just by gripping his chair a little harder he could–"How the fuck am I the child here?!" she almost shouted, standing up and disengaging from the fight. He won.

"You were asking all of those questions again and again, crying for fucking hours because you didn't know shit, and now that things are finally being explained to you, you are bored?!" She was angry at him. No, furious. It was so blindingly obvious. Every nuance of it, clear as day. It wasn't exactly him that she was angry at, despite what it looked like at first glance. It was more of a futile anger at the situation in general. Lily felt betrayed, robbed of what she considered the only person she could trust.

She didn't blame him personally the same way someone wouldn't blame an animal for eating something they shouldn't. She was hurt for Dennis being Dennis, but apparently not the one that she knew, and she didn't know what to do about it, or if it was even possible to fix it, and she was scared, and– Lily caught herself, the expression of anger instantly morphing back to emotionlessness, and she asked again in an even tone that he couldn't read anymore.

"Why?" she asked quietly. Was she pretending to be superunderstandable again? Dennis wasn't blind enough to miss that he was getting a bit too good at reading her body language. Pretending to be understandable would explain that, and thank god that this iteration of it didn't include the mandatory empathy blast, but he didn't quite get why she did that.

"I mean…" Dennis wasn't sure what to feel about Lily's problem. Actually, he didn't particularly care, but that felt somehow wrong. Like he should? That was dumb.

"It was a yes-no question. Is the apocalypse over? There was no reason to do a whole cutscene about it. Can't we just speed it along a bit so we can move on and go do the important stuff? I really don't want to know more about interdimensional politics."

"But–" While there was no emotion on Lily's face, the way she looked at him was making Dennis somehow uncomfortable.

"You were the one who asked those questions in the first place?

'Tell me everything you know about everything.' You said that."

"I did, didn't I?" Huh. That was weird. Why would he ask if he didn't want to know? It was like…

"Feels like I asked almost by inertia. Like it was on my mind for a while, and I wanted to know, so I asked… Because it was a thing on my internal to-do list? Obviously, I need to know about magic and the parts that would help me save the world again if a need arises, but the other stuff… I'd wanted to know that for a while and now…" Dennis wasn't sure how to put his feelings in words.

"Now I don't? Huh." Lily sat back down quietly, trying and somehow failing to hide her sadness. She was tired. She was resigned. She was– The flood of knowledge stopped as she took a deep breath. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"For someone supernaturally good at acting, you sure are shit at it recently," he noted.

"Acting?" El'el asked, confused.

"It's not important," Lily said. Everyone nodded, dropping the subject. It wasn't important. Heroic Senses shifted just slightly, as if debating whether they should target the girl or not, but did nothing for now. Dennis wasn't sure if he imagined that.

"It's probably the Soul thing," he said to break the silence. He just wanted everyone to move on.

"It's obviously the Soul thing," Lily agreed.

"I think I am… slightly out of the loop?" Mary said awkwardly.

"I feel like I'm intruding. Sorry… Obviously, whatever is happening between you two is important and I'm not trying to diminish it, but can we please confirm that the apocalypse is over before moving on to other topics? It's kind of a big deal."

"It's over," El'el said, looking down at her hands and not raising her eyes.

"I am sorry for… doing a cutscene. There is no one left to continue the Integration, and since the world is now a grade-three, no one will bother. The entities that we ran away from… since we are alive, I assume their battle moved on to some other world or The Roads, and a place like this should be beneath their notice. So… Yes. While I cannot guarantee it, the likeliest outcome is that this world will be left alone from now on."

"Is there a way to grow the Soul back?" Lily, apparently, didn't really care about the end of the world.

"How did you even lose it? Like, what the hell?! I wasn't there for ten goddamn minutes."

"I needed it to deal with the traps!"

"You could've just run away!"

"But, the exp!"

"Since fucking when did you care about the exp?!"

"I needed it to beat the final boss! It worked out!"" It worked out?!" Both Mary and El'el were looking increasingly uncomfortable as Lily again started spilling her emotions everywhere like it was her sole mission to magically convince reality that she was Lily, and she was upset.

"Oh, you're pretending to be yourself!" He realized.

"Dude, that's messed up."

"I'm not pretending. I am myself! And we're not talking about me here!"

"If I may…" El'el hesitantly raised her hand, almost as if asking for permission to speak.

"It appears to me that the root of the argument is Dennis… not having a Soul?"

"Again!" Lily shouted, breaking her 'I don't show emotions' facade and pointing a finger at him. For someone who was supposed to be very fucking good at acting, she was failing miserably. Was she trying to be multiple things at once or what? Including, somehow, 'herself'? While simultaneously trying to not project any emotion like her life depended on it? Dennis wasn't sure what the hell was happening in the girl's mind, despite being literally blasted with magical knowledge about her 'Lilyness'.

It was certainly a mess.

"He fucking lost it again! After everything, like it's not a big deal! It is a big deal! And he doesn't even care, and I–" The certain knowledge that Lily was about to break down crying was replaced with quiet stillness of magical silence as the girl remembered that she was supposed to show no emotions or something. While she stared blankly at him, Dennis doubted that the girl was fooling anyone at this point. Which, again, was fucking weird considering her skill.

Slowly, almost hesitantly, Mary put a hand on Lily's shoulder.

"Whatever you're doing, I don't think it's healthy," she whispered with concern.

"Sometimes it's okay to let it out."

"Nothing good will happen if I do," Lily replied tonelessly.

"It will be okay," Mary said quietly.

"I trust you."

"I know." Lily didn't say or do anything else. Just kept staring at Dennis, like he was supposed to do something about that. Honestly, he was getting a bit tired of it. Sure, he was dodging the cutscene where the elf explained cosmic politics to him, but enduring the little girl drama wasn't much better. The only good thing was the tea, and even then, he wasn't a tea person.

"I am… somewhat confused," El'el said to the girl.

"Putting aside the fact that he clearly… He clearly has some sort of heretical monstrosity in the conceptual place of a Soul, which should naturally make it impossible to have a conventional Soul in the first place, you claim that he… lost it twice? As in, he didn't have one, then gained it, and then lost it again? And that's reflected on its– I am sorry, his System?"

"That's kind of correct," Dennis mused. Heretical monstrosity?

"Though it's zero out of one now, and it's rude to call me an 'it'."

"I am very sorry," El'el raised her hands.

"I just assumed that you are… some sort of golem or otherwise an artificial being. I did not know that you possess an actual Soul, even if it's exhausted. It was rude of me to deny your personhood, despite how crazy your story sounds. The only reason I even believe it is because not believing the Truthsaying Saint is even more crazy. I apologize again."

"Personhood?" Dennis really didn't like the implication.

"Will he get it back?" Lily asked, with a hint of desperation.

"I don't see why not," the elf shrugged.

"Ignoring the impossibility of it being there in the first place, of course, it should just recover."

"The hell was that about personhood?" El'el bit her lip, and spoke hesitantly, carefully choosing her words. She was still afraid of him, it seemed.

"Soul gives us the ability to pick a path in life, and to impose our will upon the world," she said.

"It's karma, fate, and talent. What we were, what we are and what we will be, and our ability to choose. Mana is a direct expression of it, and it lets us shape ourselves and the world as we see fit. A thing without a Soul is just… a thing. In most societies it wouldn't be considered sentient. That you act with such sophistication while claiming to have none of it is… a miracle, I would say. Also, impossible, on multiple levels." It took him a few moments to digest it.

"Free will," he said.

"You're saying that I don't have free will." She made a so-so gesture.

"Close enough," she said in a tone that sounded like an apology. Heroic Senses pinged him that someone was in grave danger, somewhere in the middle of the city. His heart roared for a chance to go and save someone's life instead of dealing with whatever this shit was.

"Well, fuck you too." The world slowed down to a halt. Dennis calmly stood up, pushed the chair in, and walked away, carefully closing the door behind.