chapter02 · 029-ep26
Episode 26: The Only Thing I Can't Decide Is the Channel Name
The next day, Sunday, I was in Osu.
The electronics district side. One street in from the arcade, explorer-oriented shops line up — a weapons store, a secondhand parts shop next door, and a specialty streaming-gear store across from that. That kind of lineup.
My target: a camera.
I walked in, and five seconds later, I regretted it.
So many.
Drones covered an entire wall. All of them roughly the same shape, and yet the price tags were off by whole digits.
"Looking for something?"
The one who spoke up was a young clerk. Mid-twenties, maybe. "Kaga" on the name tag.
"A camera drone. For streaming."
"For dungeon use, then. What's your budget?"
Budget.
Honestly? I could pay any amount.
But the instant I said "any amount," I could already picture the what-is-this-high-schooler-talking-about face I'd get.
"What's the cheapest one?"
"This one here. 45,000 yen."
The shelf the clerk pointed to had drones lined up on it, each a little bigger than a palm.
"Entry-level. Forty minutes of flight time, Full HD picture. It follows you, but it does shake a bit in the dark."
"Forty minutes?"
"If you're diving — honestly, not enough."
"Not enough how...?"
"How long does one floor take you?"
"Twenty minutes, give or take?"
"Then it dies on you partway through Floor 2."
I see.
"Couldn't I just swap batteries along the way?"
"Can you swap batteries mid-combat?"
"No, I could not."
"There you go, then."
Kaga-san pointed at the shelf on the opposite side.
"This one's our mid-tier. Three hours of flight time, 4K support, low-light correction. The tracking's quite a bit smarter too."
"How much?"
"120,000 yen."
120,000.
Against an account holding 4.8 million, that's rounding error. Exactly like Miyake said. Complete rounding error.
"There's a step above it, too."
"Above?"
"This is our high-end model. Eight hours of flight time, automatic obstacle avoidance, subject lock, plus a feature that reads viewer comments aloud."
"H-how much?"
"580,000 yen."
580,000.
That is not a high schooler's purchase.
I couldn't move from that spot.
It looked different from the rest, for starters. One size up from the mid-tier, in matte black. The legs fold — packs down to palm size for storage.
A thin ring runs around the lens. Power it on, and the ring lights up blue.
It's cool.
"Want to take it for a test flight?"
The moment Kaga-san said that, I had already lost.
Power on. The blue ring lit. Almost no sound at all.
It lifted off and stopped right beside my face. No wobble in the movement. When I reached out a hand, it slid sideways, keeping exactly the same distance.
"Subject lock. Register once, and it'll keep up with you even at a run."
"Even at a run?"
"Full sprint's no problem."
No good.
"Oh, and this."
Kaga-san worked the controls, and the lens ring changed color. Blue, to red.
"Recording status shows by color. You can change it in the settings — any color you like."
Any color I like.
A black body, with a glowing ring in whatever color I like.
Middle-school me would have wept with joy at this thing.
And, well. Present-day me too.
"I'll take this one!"
"The 580,000 one, yes."
"Yes. The black one."
"And batteries?"
"Huh? Those are separate?"
"One's in the body, but this model uses swappables. A spare is peace of mind."
"How much each?"
"8,000 yen."
"Two, please."
Apparently it runs eight hours, but even so, clearing a hundred floors in a single day is out of the question. Splitting it across days or not, spares can't hurt.
"Is swapping easy?"
"One touch. Drop it out, slot it in — ten seconds or so."
"Mid-combat?"
"I'd advise against."
Fair.
It's cool. That alone was worth 580,000 yen to me.
Have I actually graduated from chuunibyou at all?
"Payment?"
"Card."
I held out my Guild card. It deducts straight from the balance.
My 4.8 million became 4.22 million.
"Um, can I ask one thing?"
"Of course."
"When there's something I don't want on camera — how do I handle that?"
The clerk's hands stopped.
"'Don't want it on camera' being?"
"My face. And, uh. Things I'd rather not show."
"Ah."
Kaga-san didn't look remotely suspicious.
"Common question. Plenty of people don't want to show their faces."
Thank goodness.
"With this model, face recognition blurs it automatically. You can restrict the angles too — below the waist only, from behind only, settings like that."
"Automatically?"
"Yes. It tracks the registered face and processes it in real time. It's high-end, so the accuracy is quite high."
"Quite high."
"However."
"However?"
"If the processing can't keep up, an unblurred frame can slip through for just a moment."
"When does it fail to keep up?"
"Sudden movement. Turning to look back mid-sprint, for instance."
Kaga-san continued, sounding apologetic.
"Mid-combat, honestly, I can't guarantee it."
I see.
So it isn't perfect.
Back home, I unboxed the drone.
Smaller than I expected. About fits in both hands. Power on, a low hum, and it lifted up to take its station at the side of my face.
Pairing with the phone app — that much went by the book.
The problem came after.
『Please enter a channel name.』
The input field glowed, blank.
"A name, huh..."
For thirty minutes, I couldn't move.
I know the reason.
Whenever I try to think up something in this genre, it never, ever ends well.
In middle school, I did this job dozens of times. Organization names, weapon names, technique names, True Names. Write it, rule a double line through it, rewrite, rule another line through it.
That me was thinking up the coolest names he could, with everything he had.
And now, I have to do the exact opposite.
I tried typing one, just to see.
『Saku's Dungeon Stream』
Lame.
No — not lame. Normal. So normal my heart didn't move in the slightest.
Deleted.
The next one I typed was this:
『He Who Gazes Into the Abyss』
Deleted in three seconds.
What am I even typing.
Three names typed, three deleted. Repeat, repeat — and when I came to, an hour had passed.
I'm doing exactly what I did in middle school.
The only difference is that back then I kept adding more, and now all I do is delete.
In the end, the one who settled it was my little sister.
Passing by my room, she came in without knocking and peered at my screen.
"Whatcha doing?"
"KNOCK!"
"I did! Oh — you're doing a stream."
"Nothing's decided yet."
"You're stuck on the channel name?"
"Got a problem with that?"
"You've been groaning about it for like an hour, huh. I could hear you through the wall."
"Don't eavesdrop!"
Seina plopped down on my bed and started tapping at her phone.
"I don't want my real name out there."
"Ohh, look at you, actually thinking ahead."
"Obviously. It's the internet."
"Then just go with something normal?"
"THAT 'normal' is the hard part!"
Go cool and I'm right back in middle school. Go plain and my soul dies. The spot in between simply will not reveal itself.
Seina stared at her screen for about thirty seconds, then looked up.
"Then just go with 'Dungeon Strolls.'"
"Huh?"
"Dungeon Strolls. 'Strolls' in lowercase."
"I don't..."
"It's cute, right?!"
"I don't NEED cute."
"Big bro."
Seina gave me a look of pure pity.
"Do you know what social media looks like right now?"
"Wh-what's this, all of a sudden?"
"Do you know what's actually growing right now?"
The words jammed in my throat.
I don't. Honestly, not at all. The last time I chased internet trends was, what — my second year of middle school?
"Loose and chill is what wins now. Stiff, trying-hard-to-be-cool stuff is struggling."
"Is it?"
"It is."
My little sister declared it.
"Also, a loose name grows off the gap with the content. That's basic."
"Basic?"
"Basic."
What is this. My little sister is vastly smarter than me.
"But 'Dungeon Strolls' is—"
"Got any other ideas?"
"No. No, I don't."
"Then it's decided!"
I was sunk.
Completely and utterly sunk.
In silence, I typed 'Dungeon Strolls' and pressed Register.
"Oh, right."
Seina turned back, halfway out the door.
"You're not showing your face, right?"
"Not showing it. Absolutely not."
"Good. I'd hate for your face to start circulating online."
"Aw — you actually do care about your big bro?"
"No. I just don't want people finding out I'm your sister."
"GET OUT!"
The next weekend.
I stood in front of an E-rank dungeon.
The Mizuho dungeon, in Mizuho Ward. E-rank, a hundred floors.
Below my D-rank, sure — but it's a hundred floors. Not a one-day job.
So I made it the project.
『E-Rank Dungeon: Attempting All 100 Floors』
Split across sessions, the story still connects, and viewers can follow the progress. I ran it by Fujidou and got "not bad."
My outfit: not the usual black cloak.
Can't wear that. Streaming in the same cloak that showed up in those videos would be like marching up and announcing who I am.
Instead, a gray hoodie, bought the day before.
My face gets handled on the drone's side — an automatic blur goes on. My voice, I left alone. Going as far as disguising that felt like it'd make me MORE suspicious, if anything.
Today's me does not become the King.
The drone lifted and stopped at my diagonal front. The lens ring glowed.
The color: black. I tried to pick the least noticeable one, and in the end, that was the coolest of them all.
The app asked: Start streaming?
My finger shook, a little.
I pressed it.
Viewer count: zero.
Obviously. Nobody knows this channel exists.
I opened my mouth toward the camera.
"Uh, hello there."
Stiff voice.
"This is Dungeon Strolls. Starting the stream today. The plan is to dive an E-rank dungeon all the way down — a hundred floors."
Saying my own channel name out loud killed me a little inside.
Viewer count: one.
It went up.
Who—? I checked the chat.
『Miyake』
『HE'S HEEEEERE』
He set up notifications. This guy.
...It made me a little happy.
Viewer count: two. Three.
"Osawa" arrived. "Yamabuki" too.
No "Fujidou." He's the type who watches without ever posting.
All friends. And that felt natural to me.
D-rank? There are five hundred thousand of them in Japan. Nothing special at all. Grind seriously for a few years, and anyone reaches it.
That's what I'd assumed.
Viewer count: four.
A name I didn't know came in.
『Anonymous Explorer』
『Huh?』
『Huh?』
"Eh, what?"
『Says D-rank at fifteen』
『Typo, surely』
『You mean F』
The comments started piling up, fast.
Viewer count: 6. 9. 14.
『Hold on』
『Fifteen means registered less than a year ago, right?』
『F→E is half a year, E→D is one to two years』
『Fastest physically possible should still be seventeen-ish』
『And that's with diving every single day. Normally you start after getting into college.』
Huh.
I stared at my phone screen.
Something's off. ...But now that they mention it.
The only D-rank I know personally is exactly one person. Tono Akari. A second-year in high school. Even SHE gets told "so young, and already that good."
A second-year was the young end?
I'm a first-year. In April.
『Faked profile?』
『No way you could fake rank — it's linked to the Guild』
『Then it's real?』
『If it's real, this is a genuine record, guys』
A record.
Viewer count: 23.
Climbing. Still climbing.
This is bad.
I read this completely wrong.
But nobody has ever seen a fifteen-year-old D-rank.
The drone's lens tracked me.
And beyond it, twenty-three people were all thinking the same thing.
What IS this guy?
No — calm down. Face is hidden. Name's not out. I can just be "some young D-rank kid" and leave it there. Dive casually, wrap it up casually, get forgotten by tomorrow — that's all I need.
Thinking exactly that, I held my card to the gate.
The auth tone chimed.
The door opened, and I stepped through.
Viewer count: 31.