The city, where the citizens' evacuation had ended, was as still as a lake with no wind.
Perhaps because I had repeatedly experienced the life of hearing cheers everywhere I stepped, this silence felt oddly comfortable.
After everything ends, living in such peace might not be a bad thing.
"Do you really think that’s possible?"
I was planning for a relaxed, rural life, but Arthur unwittingly interrupted me.
"After saving the world, you'll practically be treated like a sage. People will be looking for you from all over."
Could you not ruin my daydreams with reality? I should be allowed to indulge in a little happy imagination, right?
"It'll be a problem with Lucy's face being so widely recognized. You won't be able to avoid attention unless you hide deep in the mountains."
"In fact, hiding might only enhance the mystery around Lady Allen, making people pursue you more persistently."
"Even if bad rumors spread, no one will take them seriously."
I had just been daydreaming, could you not shatter it so thoroughly?
Reality is too hopeless; I might end up feeling depressed.
Before entering the dungeon, my mental state might shatter!
"Don't worry, Lucy. I’ll take care of everything."
Ignoring Frey's words, I continued forward and sensed a divine presence from the center of the city.
It was the kind of energy you typically feel from church people. A holy knight of the Pope, perhaps?
"Weapon up. Idiots."
I walked through the street, channeling the holy energy.
In a city where people had just left, traces of them still remained.
The faint smell of food, clean window frames where people’s hands had touched, doors left open because they had been hastily abandoned, and teacups visible beyond the moving door, carried by the wind.
This city still held onto its everyday life.
And as long as the remnants of everyday life remained, people would return.
I had come here to protect their everyday lives.
Strengthening my grip on my shield, I moved forward and saw the knights standing in front of the dungeon entrance.
They didn’t draw their weapons at the sight of us, their enemies; instead, they greeted us politely.
"Welcome, Apostle of the Lord, and your companions. We’ve been waiting for you."
"You were waiting for me in this gloomy place, with no one around? Wow. What kind of perverted thing are you trying to do? What kind of delusion were you having? Want me to mock you for it? Huh?"
"This is a trial given to you by His Majesty. Please enjoy your time inside."
As the leading knight stepped aside, the other knights also moved aside, standing in formation in front of the dungeon door.
Their behavior, as if welcoming a VIP, felt more like welcoming a sinner heading to hell.
"Should I go?"
I firmly pressed down on Frey’s head, which had become dangerously reckless in a different sense, making him silent, and followed the knights inside the dungeon.
From what I remembered, this dungeon had a theme related to mirrors.
It was a place with a strong puzzle-like feel, so if you understood the strategy, you could clear it in no time.
When I was playing through it on the monitor, I used glitches to finish the dungeon in seconds, but since I was with my friends now, I couldn't do something as crazy as passing through walls. I decided to go with a regular strategy.
No need to rush anyway.
Drawing a map in my mind, I stepped into one of the mirrors, and the surrounding scenery immediately changed.
The place looked like a poor country.
People with bones starkly visible were sitting on the streets, the cries of hungry children echoed from the houses, corpses littered the roads, but no one seemed interested in cleaning them up.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel the sorrow.
It wasn’t because they were non-human.
It was just that they didn’t have the strength to shed tears or the energy to mourn for others.
"...This is where I’ve been before."
While I blankly stared at the realistic and therefore despairing scene, Fabey spoke up.
Her voice, seemingly indifferent yet slightly trembling, told me that even the Saint had found this sight terrifying.
"It was a place stricken by famine due to a long drought. Because of the war in our homeland, it took a long time for aid to arrive, and by the time I got there, it was already in the worst state."
"Was this one of your nightmares, Saint?"
"Yes. An unforgettable sight."
I closed my eyes and wiped away the scene I had just seen.
Then I thought about the variables that had occurred in this dungeon.
The original dungeon didn’t have such gimmicks.
The rooms only had headache-inducing puzzles. There was no way to disturb the player’s mind like this.
It had changed.
Why?
"Lucy."
"Don’t rush me. You’ll have to be more patient than a dog."
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freeweɓnovēl.coɱ.
I put myself into a trance, convincing myself that the scenery around me was just scenery and opened my eyes again.
After all, this was just a room in the dungeon. There must be some strategy involved here, and there was surely a purpose behind the Pope creating this room.
So...
The discomfort I felt in my eyes must be the answer.
I raised my mace to strike the person sitting next to me but stopped midway.
The man, starving and unable to move, didn’t even react when the mace reached just in front of his face.
I knew. With my skills in weak spot detection and aesthetic sense, I could tell this man was a fake.
I also knew that to escape this room, I’d have to defeat all the enemies that seemed fake.
Despite knowing all of this, I couldn’t bring myself to attack the innocent-looking person gazing up at me with naive eyes.
Even if I attacked this man, what then?
Should I kill the woman over there and crush the crying child before I leave this room?
And then what?
Once Fabey’s nightmare ends, will another person’s nightmare begin?
Will I have to keep attacking someone else in Joy’s nightmare, in Frey’s nightmare, in Arthur’s nightmare? Defeat them again and again, and finally attack the innocent Lucy before escaping this place?
Can I really escape? Is that really the right answer?
"Lucy, there’s something strange. Should we go?"
At Frey’s words, I pictured in my mind the sight of everyone’s necks falling, and I fought the urge to bring it all out.
"You thought I didn’t notice? Just wait and stay quiet, idiot."
"Alright, got it."
As I continued my thoughts, I put away my mace and wiped my face.
Let’s change the plan.
Since I couldn’t figure out the enemy’s intentions, blindly repeating strategies was pointless.
If I kept going like this, I’d collapse before I figured it out. So I abandoned the usual approach.
Even if there was a variable introduced by the Pope, this was a mirror dungeon.
If the fundamentals are the same, glitches should still work.
"Follow me."
Without offering further explanation, my friends followed me without question.
"Are you planning to use some crazy method again?"
"Isn’t it great that it’s so very Lucy-like?"
"Since the enemy’s using underhanded methods, Lady, there’s no need to confront them directly."
"As long as it’s fun, I’m in."
Seeing my friends figure it out on their own, I realized how much nonsense we’d been repeating all along.
But this time, it would be even more surprising. It was going to be something more nonsensical than anything we’d done before.
"Huh? Something’s strange ahead."
"White ground?"
The world inside the mirror was vast, but it wasn’t infinite like the world of the End’s power.
In the end, this world was just one of many rooms in the dungeon. There’s a limit to the resources we can get.
So if we keep running, the end of the room will eventually appear.
"Stop here."
Stopping at the boundary where the dry, withered earth met the white land, I placed my hand on a transparent wall.
Normally, you wouldn’t be able to pass this area, but if you looked closely, there were places you could climb.
...No, wait. Do I really need to find the subtle crack in the wall to climb up?
I could probably just jump up and easily reach the end, right?
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I gathered strength in my legs and leapt with all my might, hitting my head against an invisible ceiling and falling back down.
"Y-Your Ladyship! Are you alright!?"
"...Pff."
"Cough. L-Lucy. Are you okay?"
"Hehehe! Lucy, you’re such an idiot!"
The ceiling... why is it so low!?
When I was on the monitor, I thought my fingers would break from pressing the spacebar, but it was actually this low?!
This is insane!
Feeling my cheeks heat up, I quickly jumped up again and easily reached the edge of the wall.
The small space left between the ceiling and the wall.
What if I sneakily climb through here?
Ta-da! The dungeon explorers can enter places even they don’t know about!
After confirming that my friends had climbed over the wall following me, I glanced around and grabbed Frey’s collar, stopping him from rushing forward.
His feet, unaware that there was empty space ahead, were floating in the air.
"Don’t say anything, just follow me quietly. I won’t stop you if you want to enjoy falling endlessly."
After warning him to just follow me, I took a step forward, but then Joy couldn’t resist and spoke up.
"Lucy, I just have one question. What will we find if we go straight ahead?"
"A shitty boss."
"...Pardon?"
"A low-self-esteem, pathetic, imitation-wannabe boss. Don’t worry too much about it. I’ll destroy that weakling before it even starts mumbling."
That's the essence of a glitch run.