The one made by Popstar Games?"
"Of course I do! I just bought the new one.
Are you telling me you work with that company?
That’s incredible! It’s selling like crazy, and the reviews are amazing.
But why is that dangerous?"
Innocent curiosity was the most terrifying and powerful weapon in human relationships.
In Lily’s eyes, there was no moral judgment or suspicion.
There was only child-like admiration.
Inside the tense Sophia, a red warning light clicked off.
The tension drained away.
"Pfft, hahaha!"
Sophia couldn't help but burst into laughter.
Only Lily, who didn't know why Sophia was laughing, tilted her head in confusion.
Lily shrugged and looked at Charlie and Emma, but they seemed just as clueless.
"Hahaha, Lily. You are truly... incredible."
Sophia wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes.
She had even forgotten what she had been worried about.
In front of such a harmless friend, what kind of spy movie had she been filming in her head?
"What?"
"No, it's nothing."
Emma asked Charlie if he knew anything about Sophia’s behavior.
Charlie also shook his head.
However, Charlie felt as though he could understand Sophia's heart.
In the world of snobs,
that purity of Lily’s was sometimes a weapon and sometimes a salvation.
"Those high ratings and good reviews for that company...
I was the one who did that,"
Sophia confessed, her voice much more relaxed now.
"What do you mean by that?" Lily asked.
"The company contacted me.
They offered me a huge amount of money to make public opinion favorable.
So, I used Artistea to write about a million posts across game communities worldwide.
I moved praise to the 'Best' section and attacked any negative reviews to bury them."
Sophia spoke as casually as if she were explaining an Excel spreadsheet.
A million instances of manipulating public opinion.
To her, it was merely 'data processing.'
"See? It's no big deal. Now, let's have a drink."
Sophia, wanting to avoid going any deeper, raised her glass.
Emma and Charlie immediately bumped their glasses together in response to her signal.
Clink—
Along with the cheerful sound of the toast, the three of them downed their beers.
The alcohol sliding down her throat washed away Sophia's guilt.
Emma and Charlie also smiled with relief,
thinking it wasn't as dangerous a job as they had feared.
However, one person's glass remained on the table. Lily’s.
"Lily? What's wrong?"
Emma lightly tapped Lily's arm.
Lily started and looked at her friends.
Her face was pale.
"Huh? Is something wrong? What are you thinking about all of a sudden?"
Sophia asked, setting down her glass.
She felt anxious whenever Lily acted like this.
Even if she usually seemed dazed,
there were moments when Lily’s unique intuition hit the bullseye.
"Rilri_Ox..."
A strange word escaped Lily’s lips.
"Sophia, do you remember this ID by any chance?"
Lily’s eyes were fixed on Sophia.
Sophia frowned, searching her memory.
Rilri_Ox? Lily Oxford?
"What is that?"
There was no way she could remember.
Sophia had created and deleted millions of accounts.
To her, an individual ID was more meaningless than a grain of sand on a beach.
The only things she checked while working were graphs and deposit records.
"...No? Still, somehow..."
At Sophia's indifferent answer,
Lily rested her chin on her hand and sank into deep thought.
She slipped back into a maze of her own making.
'Rilri_Ox. Lily Oxford.
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The ID I made while being so happy about getting into Oxford...
the other people who drove me out as if I were a crazy person...'
Lily was piecing together the fragments of her memory.
"Lily, what’s going on all of a sudden?"
Emma, getting frustrated, tried to wake Lily from her daze.
"Are you okay?"
Sophia also looked at Lily with worried eyes.
That look was sincere.
The eyes of a friend, Sophia, who worried about Lily.
Lily stared deeply into Sophia’s eyes.
On one side of her heart, the conviction that
'Sophia must be the culprit ' rose up.
On the other side, the belief that
'No, I'm just doubting a friend. This is Sophia, of all people...'
pushed back.
Even though contact with Sophia had dwindled, they hadn't grown apart.
But once suspicion took root in her mind, it wouldn't let her go.
Lily wanted to confirm.
"No, it's just that when that 'Last Car Thief' game came out,
I posted something online because I was curious about other people's reviews.
But as soon as I wrote it,
people suddenly started attacking me as if I were some kind of freak.
They called me an anti-feminist, a man, and used insults I can't even repeat..."
Lily poured out her words without stopping.
Then, as if to soothe her burning insides,
she picked up her glass and gulped down her drink a beat later than her friends.
Her eyes were secretly watching Sophia’s expression.
"You? A man? Is that a site that shows gender? Or did you have a fight there before?"
Charlie couldn't believe it.
Lily was like the lubricant of this group.
Even when everyone was sensitive during exam periods or nervous before important events,
Lily had the ability to disarm everyone with her unique awkwardness and purity.
If she was the Lily Charlie knew, it was impossible for her to post that kind of thing on the internet.
"No, would I even write something like that?
I'm not even interested in that stuff.
Anyway... since that day, I’ve been too scared to go to any internet communities at all."
Lily added, catching Emma and Charlie's eyes.
"That's why I don't really watch the news either..."
"What? You mean you’ve hardly used the internet at all since that day?" Emma asked sharply.
In modern society, not using the internet was the same as living with your eyes and ears closed.
It made no sense at all. Lily nodded weakly.
"Yeah. That’s why I said earlier that I hardly use Artistea except for looking up game walkthroughs.
Other than visiting game-selling sites... I barely even connect to the internet."
"Come on, that makes no sense. How can you live like that? Who lives like that in this day and age?"
Charlie threw out an exaggerated joke to lighten the atmosphere,
but his expectation was shattered by Lily's silent nod. Silence.
A heavy stillness settled over the table that had just been full of laughter.
“Then... maybe it’s not that you failed to find a job,
but that something might have kept you from getting one?”
Sophia’s voice trembled slightly.
Inside her head, fragmented pieces of information were being assembled into one horrific picture.
Lily's desperate gaze.
The way she had grabbed her hand.
The request for a job.
Sophia felt as though her breath was being cut off.
What if the reason Lily was ostracized from the world was because of one of the public opinion manipulations Sophia had handled?
What if that massive success fee she received was the price of selling out her friend's future?
'No, but surely, just for getting attacked a little bit on the internet?
No, but if it's Lily... wait, I would have moderated the intensity to some extent, right? '
Lily didn't answer anymore and bowed her head.
Sophia, with trembling hands, hurriedly pulled out her phone.
She had to check. Praying it wasn't true, she opened the Artistea app.
"Arti, I want to check my past request logs. Is the ID 'Rilri_ox' related to me by any chance?"
While Emma and Charlie consoled Lily with worried eyes, Sophia scanned her past request logs.
The letters slowly appeared on the phone screen, and Sophia’s heart pounded as she watched.
'It can't be, surely. That makes no sense.'
<...exists. Search result...>
Clatter—
Deep guilt washed over her like a wave.
She was at a loss for words to comfort Lily.
On the other hand, she couldn't entirely understand Lily,
who had been so wounded by such a thing that she had even given up on her reality.
Sophia had been different from the moment she first got her hands on Artistea.
She had gone through countless experiments.
It wasn't just simple curiosity.
'How far can I implement my thoughts?'
‘Is she a partner in my work, or just a simple tool?’
'How could this affect my life?'
'Could I use this as a means to make money?'
Sophia had found various ways and actually performed many tasks.
Deleting someone's video posted online, secretly manipulating a company's information,
or sometimes creating and providing her own programs.
She received all profits in cryptocurrency, making sure she remained hidden.
"I'm sorry... I think... it's me..."
Sophia’s affection for Lily was greater than her resentment.
She wasn't sure if Lily would accept her apology.
However, she decided to be brave.
It might be an arrogant heart.
But she hoped that if she took the lead and was honest, it might also give Lily courage.
'You'll accept my apology, won't you? You'll ease my guilt, won't you, Lily? Please...'
At Sophia’s trembling voice, Lily raised her head with an agonizingly slow movement and scanned her friend.
'Why didn't I know?'
Only now did Sophia’s glamor—clad in luxury brands from head to toe—truly enter Lily's sight.
Compared to that, her own appearance was shabby.
Lily felt like a complete fool.
"As expected... Sophia, you are amazing, unlike me."
It wasn't sarcasm.
It wasn't a calculated remark.
It was just an honest admiration and self-mockery for her capable
and glamorous friend who had looked after her the best.
"Gasp..."
Emma covered her mouth with her hand.
In her eyes, Lily’s remark looked like the most cruel and cold sarcasm.
That chilliness of saying "You are amazing" to the perpetrator who ruined her.
Emma had never imagined it.
That the gentle Lily,
who would laugh when teased and come to comfort her when things were hard,
could have such a dark side.
'Is it possible... that I knew nothing about Lily at all?'
Emma, feeling a chill down her spine, instinctively grabbed Charlie's hand tightly.
Charlie was just as shocked, but the nature of his shock was different.
This part continues the “Reunion” arc in Chapter 16,
focusing on unspoken memories and subtle fractures between four friends.
Daily updates continue until Chapter 17.