1.47 – Last thing

They lay there on the broken couch, laughing about what happened. Nathan could barely believe it. She leaned onto him once again, planting kisses on his chin in-between the bursts of laughter. It felt magical, all of this that happened. That they were here, connected like this.

“Well, that’s certainly not something I expected this morning.”

“Can’t say the same.” She smirked, tapping two fingers as she went over his chest. “I did want to talk to you about a few things before…” she pointed vaguely at the broken couch. “That, but let’s say I just got carried away a little.”

Another chuckle escaped Nathan before he sat up, inspecting the damage that they have done. “Will your pops be okay with this?”

“I don’t give a fuck. Well, okay, no, that’s not completely true. But I have several things I want to talk to you about, and this one can come last. Let’s sit down for a moment.”

“Should we grab a shower first?”

“It can come later. I don’t know if I’m done with you yet.” She bit her lower lip. “You got anything to do today?”

Uh-oh. “Kind of? Vermillion Strike should come visit and take me to the Onis today. She said towards the evening though.”

“See? So we’re fine. Come sit!”

She walked through the living room, kicking out some of the wooden pieces from the couch to the side as she went towards the dining table. Nathan joined her, and they sat in silence for a few moments.

She pointed at his hand. “Does that finger…?”

“It won’t regrow if you’re asking that.”

“No, I’m asking whether it hurts. I keep wondering about how it feels.”

He smiled and grabbed her hand in his. “It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt or anything, and to be honest, a few days without it, I barely remember I lost it. Yukiko said she’ll get me a prosthetic, sometime soon.”

“Good, good. Okay. I wanted to talk about what we began talking about back in that karaoke bar.”

“Oh, I thought we kind of closed that theme.”

“No, I’ve been thinking about it a bit.”

“About which part?”

“Well, about the fact that you probably knew me from the game as well, while I didn’t know you. But for the most part I was thinking about the fact that these happy endings and what you said about them.”

“I said something about happy endings?” He asked. His head was filled only with what happened moments earlier.

“Yes, you did. Remember? There are 6 of them.”

“Oh yeah, I’m unsure about what they mean. I did get a notification when I met the two Red Lily members though.”

“See? That means they must be your future conquests! About the sixth one…”

“But I also got a similar message when I saw Vermillion Strike for the first time.”

She scrunched her eyebrows. “Oh, okay. And I doubt a villain would be your conquest for this time around. That means we’ve got it wrong. Back to my other theory.”

“And that is? “

“That it’s not about completing, but about fixing the game.”

“Fixing? What do you mean?”

“Just think about it for a moment. This, to you, is a video game or was a video game. Yes, it’s real for you now, but you must have been pulled here for some reason, like an Isekai protagonist in one of those light novels that I hide in my night table in my room.”

“Why hide them? Just show them off.”

“Oh, shut up. Those are not girly. Anyway, think about it. Every time, they have some kind of goal. They have fixed something or defeated someone, and I think that this might be not too different.”

“But what would that mean? I have to.. defeat someone? Destroy the Red Lily?”

“I suppose. Wouldn’t that mean a better life for a large amount of people?”

“I guess… But it doesn’t solve what the happy ending means.”

She seemed to think for a moment. “Maybe. I still think it has to be connected to Red Lily somehow.”

“That’s… going to be difficult.

“A lot of ground to cover to catch up, huh? Yeah, I felt useless there too.”

“You held your ground with your new whip thing.”

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“It’s strange. When I got there, and thought about helping you and getting you outside. I just knew how to do it. The explosion was quite small, but I just knew it carried more impact… I don’t know how to explain it.”

“I’m proud of you.” Nathan smiled and planted another kiss on her mouth.

She blushed, but took a confident expression. “O-o-of course!”

“This is like the 15th time we kissed, if you count that as well.” He pointed to the remains of the couch. “When are you gonna stop blushing?”

“Hopefully never.” She mumbled and then shook herself. “Okay, back to topic.”

“Yes, so you wanted to talk about several things. This was number 1. We are basically fucked until I get more powerful. Case closed. What’s next?”

“Wait, no. One last thing. You think all of the romance interests are in Red Lily?”

Nathan actually thought about it for a moment. “Well, I think four are quite possibly there. Mio and Koharu were two that we met right there on the hideout.”

She nodded, and he continued. “Then there’s Rin, who has healing powers and was in 1-S class back in the game. Haven’t seen her around at all, so I assume she’s there. Lastly, there’s Turnip, a hero teacher in Ako Academy.”

Alicia shook her head. “I know the names of all the teachers. There is no Turnip in Ako.”

“So that settles it. Four of them.”