“D-Deek?” Alysia called out, but the guy ignored her and she glanced at me.
I clenched my teeth slightly but I nodded. “It’s fine.”
The Hero who was still playing around with the girls as if he had a carefree life turned to Alysia and smiled. “Yes, my beautiful little flower?”
Alysia’s mouth twitched. “Um, it’s best if we get a move on. We must rescue Miki quickly. There is little time.”
He had Lydia in one arm as she rubbed against him, and boobs… ahem… Celeste with her boobs pressed against his other arm. He straightened up and let go of Lydia as he put on a heroic façade.
“Since you’ve decided to become my woman, I naturally couldn’t say no. Let us go off and save her!”
As if that was all that needed to be said, he started strutting off. The other girls immediately began pulling him. Even Shao seemed to be drawn as if tied by some force.
“Come on…” She hissed, as she backed away.
Alysia and I shared a glance and then started to follow the party. They walked straight out of town, seemingly moving in a straight line down a long rocky road that led away from the city. The movement was extremely steady and they moved in one direction.
“How far away is she?” I asked.
I was feeling just a bit rushed, given the situation. However, my voice seemed to be met with deaf ears. Although he had engaged with me naturally when he was rescuing me, from the moment Alysia had agreed to join him, it was like a switch had been flipped. Incidentally, I had become an NPC, and there was no programming between him and me now that this portion of the story was unfolding.
I had entered this world through a video game, and this world had been filled with various game-like things. This was the first time I realized how true that was. In a way, the lore of a dungeon was just like a video game as well. There were levels, and as you progressed down the levels you gained increasingly larger portions of the lore. Some games were open-world, some games were puzzle games, and some games were walking simulations. Dungeons even had assets they could use, and you could gather or accumulate more assets based on a principle of input and output.
I had once had a physics teacher who even suggested that real-life was just a simulation, just one more complicated and open than our brains could comprehend. Would someone in a video game realize they were in a video game? It truly was a new way of looking at dungeons that I hadn’t considered before.
However, for the moment, I had to focus on staying alive. When he didn’t answer me, I turned to someone who he was perhaps coded to speak to. Alysia nodded and then repeated my question.
“Far away.” He responded, “The journey will be filled with danger. We’ll have to cross rivers and mountains. We’ll have to forge through unspeakable horrors! We’ll brave the icy cold and the scorching heat. Only then will we finally arrive at the… we’ve arrived!”
“Eh?” Alysia blinked.
“We’re here. Good journey everybody. I’m gladdened we’ve made it all in one piece.”
All of the girls began crying and holding each other as if they had just done what he had spoken about.
“Th-this dungeon was just made a short while ago…” I explained. “Perhaps… she hadn’t had a chance to grow such features yet.”
Dungeons grew as they got older. The lore grew and became more complicated. However, if you jump in a bit early on, every intended event might not be implemented yet. It looks like we had skipped a major portion of the lore. Or rather, we skipped the boring middle portion and arrived at the final chapter. Given the short time involved, that suited me just fine.