Ryuu is already showing signs that she will become another of girls in love of Bell who refuses to give up and will try to fight for his love, her interaction with Ais in volume 17 is significant, her reluctance to tell her where Bell is despite the situation is already indicating to us how unwilling she is to give him to Ais, her confession in volume 18 is along the same lines, if she was already so clear that Bell only wants to be with Ais, said confession would be unnecessary and irrelevant, therefore , there is a clear purpose in this action.

It could happen that Bell, after his training with Hedin to flirt with girls and his traumatic experience with Syr/Freya, would mature and learn the dire consequences of not giving a clear answer and playing the fool as usual on him, if that happened, we would see him being clear with Ryuu and this matter would end once and for all, but I honestly doubt that will happen, I doubt that Bell will have any growth as a result of the aforementioned events, for which reason, I think that he will continue being the one he has always been with women. I'm already imagining Bell giving Ryuu the same ambiguous treatment he's been giving Hestia, where he doesn't confirm but doesn't reject either.

This is due to the open door policy used by the author of this series, where he never gives concrete resolutions to keep the options available, and since he, deliberately in my opinion, revived team Ryuu, I doubt very much that he's going to shut it down soon.

We may not like this because we don't see any sense in it, but if something became clear in volume 18, it is that Bell's love life is far from defined (as far as facts I mean).

The only thing I hope is that in his eagerness to maintain this "romantic comedy", he is not going to turn Ryuu into a second Hestia, in the sense that she applies her same harassment methods, because that would be horrible for Ryuu's character.

Yeah, no. bell might grow more as his own version of a hero but as a person any character growth he suffers from will probably be regressed. just my 2 cents though.

@Leinad91

"Ryuu is already showing signs that she will become another of girls in love of Bell who refuses to give up and will try to fight for his love, her interaction with Ais in volume 17 is significant, her reluctance to tell her where Bell is despite the situation is already indicating to us how unwilling she is to give him to Ais, her confession in volume 18 is along the same lines, if she was already so clear that Bell only wants to be with Ais, said confession would be unnecessary and irrelevant, therefore , there is a clear purpose in this action."

Yes I agree. MS17 started closing the door for us but than MS18 swung it completely wide open for us again and there was definitely intention behind it. Confession would make zero sense if it was just going to go away and disappear. Like you said "We may not like this because we don't see any sense in it, but if something became clear in volume 18, it is that Bell's love life is far from defined (as far as facts I mean)", we probably wont see Bells love life settled or define until maybe the later 30's or how ever long this book series is going to go. It will probably be in the last book of the series, calling it now. Ais will get us much romance as haruhime, freya, hestia, ryuu, and lily in her arc but she wont get more than them because it wouldn't be the final book of the series, it would just be in her arc, which I don't think will be the final book since I think dungeon will be the final books.

"Oomori never gives concrete resolutions", Leinad says, as if he didn't just have Bell shut Syr/Freya down as concretely as it's possible to do.

@ThatRabidPotato he does and doesn’t. He doesn’t give concrete resolutions with popular characters that drive the series. But someone like Syr can be outright rejected cause it doesn’t hurt anything with the fan base. Especially after the horrific things she, Syr/Freya, put Bell through.

Lily did got sister zoned.

@Aniran96 Lily isn’t that popular of a character and that wasn’t an outright rejection like Syr’s was.

@ThatRabidPotato, Freya was going to leave the city and Bell stopped her, he also promised her that he would always watch over her happiness. Is that what you would call "finishing Syr/Freya in the most concrete way possible"?

@Vanesakroger21456, for the good listener, few words, if someone says to you: "you are like a little sister to me", he is telling you very clearly that he is not interested in you romantically.

So, Lili got a complete rejection, which obviously hasn't stopped her from continuing to try and Bell has never done anything to definitively end her aspirations despite the fact that she regularly uses harassment. Therefore, this is yet another example of the open door policy that is handled in this series.

'"Is that what you would call "finishing Syr/Freya in the most concrete way possible"?'

He told her no. Then he refused her advances for weeks despite being under physical and psychological duress to accept her. Then he told her no a second time flat out. Yes, that is exactly what I call finishing Syr/Freya in the most concrete way possible. How many flipping times does he have to tell her no before you accept it?

Yes, Bell has an annoying habit of doing romantic things while thinking he's being platonic. At this point, most of the girls in-universe should understand that, and we the readers definitely should. If you don't, it doesn't change his intentions.

You have misunderstood me, I didn't mean that Bell's statement about "watch over forever for Freya's happiness" has a romantic connotation, the novel makes it quite clear that he isn't offering her a romance by making that promise.

The problem is the promise itself, for Bell to make Freya happy he will have to have a relationship with her, even if it is platonic, that is to say that they are going to stay together, and since Freya is still in love with Bell and he will be around trying to make her happy, it is logical to assume that she will maintain hope, so Freya will continue to be a valid option for Bell, an option that he already rejected but that is still available. That's what I mean by Omori always keeping the doors open by not giving concrete resolutions.

What would be a concrete resolution? for Freya to stop being available to Bell, even if he changed his mind about her, for example: for Freya to realize that what she really wanted was someone who could stand her charm and that's why she became obsessed with Bell but in reality she didn't want him but his capacity, or also that Freya had effectively left Orario to look for her true Ord or even if she stayed, that she and Bell signed peace but that each continued with their own lives, as happens in breakups real.

But no, none of this happened, they are going to continue together, and that is precisely why the Freya / Syr team will not die, which I think the author did premeditatedly due to his policy.