After sealing their pact of a temporary partnership, the first thing they did was find another place to stay before discussing their next plans. They found a suitable spot not long after—a fairly ordinary house, damaged just enough to avoid drawing attention but still intact enough to provide adequate shelter and cover.
Once they arrived, Lucas's first question was what she knew about him. He had been wondering about this ever since she mentioned doing research on the other contestants. He was eager to learn more about his background story, as it seemed to change on each floor. On this floor, his background story didn't seem to matter as much as on the other floors, since most people had no intention of chatting and would rather kill him outright. But he was still curious nonetheless.
She gave him a weird look but replied all the same. According to her, what she had gathered was that he was the heir of a small noble house on the outskirts of a big country called Tesaria. She added a few additional details about his family history and properties that went way over his head and mentioned that he used to fight mainly with his glass blades and magic.
When she mentioned the glass blades, Lucas froze for a second before relaxing. It was unexpected for the system to reveal his secrets to everyone and even add to his character background, but it wasn’t the end of the world. He would miss the element of surprise, but he never relied on that too much anyway.
The archer, named Flavya, regarded him with a weird look after finishing speaking, which prompted Lucas to ask what was the matter. In the next moment, she had a dagger in her hand and backed away from him.
“What are you doing?” Lucas asked, frowning.
“There’s something you’re not telling me. At first, when you proposed to kill Axis together, I assumed you were one of the many unsatisfied nobles who wanted to take a dig at the empire by killing their crown prince and were even willing to band up with a pariah like me to do it. So I respected your courage. But now, after seeing your reaction to me telling what I knew about you, looking like that was all fresh information, I know there’s something more to it. I’m not stupid. I was forced to learn how to read people pretty well in order to survive, so tell me. Who are you, and what do you want from me?”
Lucas definitely wasn’t expecting this turn of events so soon after she had agreed with his plan. Despite the hostile look on her face and the dagger in her hand, it didn’t look like she was about to attack him. He calmed down and thought about what his answer should be. Thankfully, after being put on the spot so often, deceit was becoming easier and easier for him. He had no intention of explaining what was actually going on, as that wouldn’t be the least bit productive and would probably cause too much disruption—that is, if he was even able to tell her. So instead, he chose another route.
Lucas sighed slowly, taking every extra second to help him think, and then said, “The truth is that I suffered an accident not long ago. I gather your research never told you that?”
He saw doubt appear on her face. “I heard that something had happened in your family, but I never found out what. But how’s that relevant?”
“Well, in that accident, I injured my head pretty badly, just a few days before the Showdown. It was so bad that even potions weren’t enough to fully heal me. I managed to recover in time to be here, as you can tell, but I ended up losing my memory.”
That had been a gamble. Lucas had no idea if people still had amnesia due to trauma in a post-system world, but considering that her face hadn’t drastically changed after hearing that, he assumed it wasn’t completely unheard of and continued.
“Well, my family tried to bring me up to speed on a few things before I had to leave them, but the thing is: my emotional attachments with them and sense of responsibility were gone with my memory. Despite being able to acknowledge their efforts to help heal me, after I woke up, I saw only how petty and annoying they were, so all gratitude that I might’ve had was blown away.”
“So, does that mean…” Flavya began to say, but Lucas continued.
“I don’t care about any political repercussions my actions may cause my family in the future. My goal is to leave here and explore this world on my own without any burden bringing me down. To do that, I need to kill Axis, and then… well, you.”
The choice to go with that story was simple. That way, he could still gather the information he needed from her and make it clear that he had no political agenda behind his actions. His intention was only to survive, and that part was entirely true. Now he just needed to find out if she would believe him.
A few seconds of tension passed while Flavya seemed to be thinking about what he had said, her expression changing multiple times during that time, until she finally spoke.
“So, what you’re saying is that you don’t know anything about me?”
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“Yes, that’s what I’m saying, but I would appreciate it if you could fill me in.”
“So you have no problem at all going around, maybe killing every other person left alive before finding Axis?” she asked, a smile growing on her face that made Lucas mildly concerned.
“Well, I haven’t really thought about it, but I guess that is even better. That way we can finish them all up and be done with it before sunset.”
She seemed surprised by his answer, then shook her head and laughed. “That seems way too good to be true, and my mom always says that when something seems too good to be true, it isn’t.” She paused before continuing, “But since I don’t have much of a choice, I’ve decided to trust you for now because if I can’t kill Axis, this entire thing will have been for nothing,” she sighed.
“Okay. Since you now sorta kinda trust me, you need to tell me what your deal is with this guy.”
At this question, she shifted uncomfortably before answering. “It’s nothing special. Our factions are… opposed. And he is the heir to the crown of the most influential empire on the planet. He is also known for his cruelty to all who are deemed his enemies. If I manage to kill him here—even if I don’t manage to get out alive—my people will live a better life. His brothers and sisters are all better than him and thus preferable to accept the crown, even if I’d rather just kill them all.”
“Now, it’s you who are not telling me something. Why did you act like I would be persona non grata if I joined you to kill him or the others, do you have a bad rep or something?”
“I thought you said you didn’t care for politics,” she replied, annoyed.
“I don’t, but information is power, and if there’s something that I need to know…”
“There isn’t. Now let’s stop wasting time with this and get back to what’s really important. I need to fill you in on the others. I figured since you are okay with it, we better kill them before we go after Axis so they don’t get in the way when the time comes.”
“Why would they? Don’t they want him dead as well?”
“You might not care about politics, but that doesn’t mean others don’t either. Their families’ reputation and countries are at stake here; they don’t want to provoke the crown prince and therefore the King himself unnecessarily.”
“What, are they just going to let Axis kill them to avoid troubling their families?” Lucas asked, baffled.
“Some of them would definitely prefer that over offending the Emperor, but most of them will wait until the very end before making any moves against him. No reason to try and kill him before there’s no other option.”
“And you think if they saw us fighting him, they would come to his aid? Wouldn’t it be better to just wait for him to die or be weakened?”
“In normal circumstances, yes. But you seem to forget that all of this is being broadcasted to the entire planet. Everything we do here is being watched,” she waited after saying that to gauge his reaction, and she seemed reassured by Lucas’s blank face, so she continued. “They can’t hear us, but they can see our actions. If someone tried to harm the prince or decided not to help him, this definitely wouldn’t be seen with good eyes by the empire, and they would find some other reason to harm their families.”
Lucas became a little annoyed hearing that, even if most of those things had nothing to do with him. “So the whole thing is rigged from the very start?”
Flavya laughed. “If you think that’s rigged, let me tell you about how they manufactured achievements for Axis to stay ahead of the rest of us.”
Lucas’s eyes grew wide hearing that. “They can do that?” After all the trouble he went through to get his achievement that afterward allowed him to get a special class, he doubted it was possible to manufacture an achievement. A few books he read afterward in the library seemed to confirm his theory, mentioning that it was a very rare and difficult thing to do, but Flavya seemed to be implying otherwise.
She seemed pretty pleased with his outrage and said, “Oh yes, they can. But they keep this secret very tightly shut; very few people know about it.”
“But you do?”
“I do,” she said, as if she didn’t want to provide him with any extra information. “On the bright side, based on what I know, the achievements they can manufacture are pretty simple and not too good compared to the ones acquired naturally.”
“But the way you say it, it wasn’t only one achievement they manufactured for him. If lots of them are added, I can’t even imagine how strong he might be,” Lucas complained, doubt filling his heart. He knew the tower probably wouldn’t give him an easy path, but now it seemed to be getting worse and worse.
“It doesn’t matter; he can’t be stronger than both of us. I did research on you; you are one of the best candidates, especially now that you have that force field with you,” she pointed out.
Lucas was a little embarrassed by it. After all, he had broken the truce to steal the gadget from the man holding the gun, and she was there when it happened.
“Don’t worry, it was a smart thing you did. I just wish you had killed him before running away,” she sighed, and Lucas was surprised to hear that.
“Is he alive?” He had assumed this whole time that after he ran away, the others had found him lying on the floor and killed him easily, but Flavya shook her head.
“People were distracted by your trick, and he managed to escape with his weapon,” she said, looking slightly concerned. “We have to watch out for him. Let’s just hope he has mercy if he sees us before we do, since you let him live and all.”
“I didn’t let him live; I just didn’t have time to kill him,” Lucas replied, slightly offended.
“Still, I heard his people are fair. He’ll probably take that into consideration, even if you didn’t mean it.”
Lucas shook his head. He had no intention of falling at the mercy of that man, and if he did meet him, the first thing he would do was try to kill him. After a few seconds, another question popped into his head, seeing Flavya's tranquil attitude.
“You said that I’m one of the strongest contestants. Aren’t you afraid of fighting me if we manage to kill Axis?”
She smirked at his question. “You are strong, but I am too. If it comes down to it and we have to fight, I’m confident in my ability to fight and even kill you. But if it happens that I’m the one getting killed instead, I would have no problem with it. If I manage to kill Axis, then I’d have done my job and I could die happy knowing my ancestors would be proud.”
Catching a tinge of fanaticism in her voice for some reason gave Lucas chills. There’s nothing scarier than someone driven by a greater purpose. Fortunately, the object of this fanaticism wasn’t him.