chapter02 · 030-ep27
Episode 27: Apparently D-Rank at Fifteen Is Abnormal
The first floor of the Mizuho dungeon was flagstone.
Not the rock walls of Kanayama, not the earthen passages of Nanyo. Artificially flat stones laid neat and tight, and candelabra-looking things spaced at even intervals along the walls. No flames lit, and yet somehow the whole area was bright.
"Whoa, neat!"
It just came out. Ruins. Completely ruins. A stone passage running on and on under the ground. Wait — who LAID this flagstone? By any measure, that's a stonemason's work.
Seeing things like this is basically why I dive, so five steps in, I was already about half satisfied. Not leaving, though.
『So pretty.』
『Mizuho has a rep as a lucky pull for interiors』
『Ruins-types are popular, huh』
Comments scrolled by. The viewer count was past forty and still climbing.
People are watching me. I know that, obviously — but this feeling, I don't see myself ever getting used to it.
Diving alone, nobody had been watching. I could go King; I could let all the pointless muttering fly. Today's different. As a fifteen-year-old D-rank, I have to dive the part properly.
『Show us your weapon』
『What do you use?』
Here it comes.
"Oh — the weapon."
I pulled the iron sword from my bag. Not a rental — a mass-produced model I bought in Osu yesterday. 12,000 yen.
"This."
『So ordinary』
『An extremely normal one』
『Beginner gear』
Well, yes. It is. It is, yes.
"Being D-rank doesn't necessarily mean you're carrying good gear."
Not a lie. My really good weapons come out of my mouth.
The first monster appeared partway through Floor 1.
What emerged from behind a flagstone was a knee-high, rat-like creature. Except it had four eyes. The four eyes moved every which way on their own — and then all at once, they snapped onto me. It gave a little chit-chit.
"Oh — there one is."
『A rat』
『Mizuho Floor 1 is rats only』
『Trash among trash』
I know. I did my homework.
Only recommended-level-10-and-under monsters show up on an E-rank's first floor. That "recommended 50" on an E-rank is strictly a deepest-floor story; up top, it's beginner country. To the current me, they're basically insects.
The rat leapt.
Kicked off the flagstone and came flying straight at my shin, staying low.
My hand moved before thinking did.
Sideways swing.
Clean in half. Sand.
"Ah."
I did it again. Holding back — completely forgot.
『Huh?』
『That one swing?』
『Is his form off, or』
『Trash or not, one-shot lol』
Bad bad bad. No — calm down. Rats ARE trash; a D-rank one-shotting one isn't strange. It's expected, even. Right. Expected.
"I mean — it's a rat."
『Fair』
『Easy work for a D』
『Also true』
It slid past. Saved. I killed ONE rat, and my heart's going like a war drum. Is this even sustainable?
But at this rate, the same thing is going to keep happening. So while walking, I built a standard in my head.
One-hit kills: fine. The problem is being too fast. Raise the sword, hold one beat, swing. That should be about right. That, from any angle whatsoever, is an ordinary D-rank.
Tried it on the next rat.
Waited for the leap. Raised the sword. One beat. Swung.
The rat turned to sand mid-pounce, exactly the same as before.
『Did that windup need to exist』
『What was the pause even for』
『He's deliberately swinging slow lol』
Busted. Instantly busted. By three people working together, no less.
In the end I gave up and decided to just fight normally. Acting was far more unnatural anyway. Right — I could never, ever make it as an actor.
From there, it was fast.
Floor 1 cleared in fifteen minutes. Floor 2, ten. Floor 3, ten.
The passages, I ran. A rat comes out — cut it without breaking stride. On to the next passage. Another one. Cut.
Basically assembly-line work.
『Pacing's brisk』
『Look at him go』
『Making good time for a 'stroll' lol』
Dungeon Strolls. Seina's name was pulling more weight than I'd expected.
Somewhere past Floor 10, the viewer count broke a hundred.
『Wait, Floor 10 already?』
『We're not even an hour in, right?』
『Normally that's a three-day job』
Huh? That long? ...Well, now that I think about it, sure.
An ordinary D-rank spends thirty minutes to an hour per floor. Advances carefully, checks for traps, heals on the way down.
And I'm running.
"Oh, uh —"
I hunted for an excuse, facing the camera.
"The upper floors only spawn trash, so."
『Fair』
『But 10 is still fast』
『What about his stamina』
Stamina. THAT is an awkward topic. "My HP is over 100" — I couldn't say that if my mouth split open.
"I'm... fairly confident in my stamina."
『Club sport, or something?』
"Three years at a dojo, in middle school."
That part's true.
『Explains it』
『A dojo, huh』
『That's why his movement's clean』
It slid past. The dojo: entirely too convenient. Thank you, dojo. Three years of showing up — genuinely worth it.
Floor 15.
The monsters changed; now it's lizards about the size of a dog.
On the first one, I swung the way I always do. A hard kink of a sound, and the blade bounced off its back.
Oh, a bit tough.
The lizard twisted its neck around to bite. Half-step back, evaded; on the return, once more to the side of its neck.
That one went in.
Two hits. Every lizard after that ended in about two hits too.
Floor 20.
The passage width jumped open wide. The candelabras spaced farther apart. Bright as it is, shadow seems to pool in the depths.
The shadow moved.
A dry scraping — jari, jari — of something dragging across the flagstone.
What came out was a lizard.
Two full sizes up from the Floor 15 ones. Head to tail-tip, it clears my height with room to spare. Dusky green scales packed tight all down its back. The thick tail it drags rasps and rasps against the flagstone.
『Big』
『That's the Floor 20 lizard』
『This one's hard』
A thin tongue flicked out and slid back in.
Yellow eyes fixed on me.
Ooh, I like this one.
My re-grip and the lizard's kick off the flagstone were simultaneous.
Fast. That big body stays low, sinking as it comes — straight in, flat and crawling.
Half-step back, one cut to the shoulder as it arrives.
A grating, nasty sound — the blade skated across the scales. The impact that should have been a cut ran straight off the outside of my wrist. The slide nearly took my whole arm with it.
『Skated off』
『You can't do anything from on top of those scales』
The lizard wheeled its whole body around.
Tail incoming.
I jumped. The thick tail howled past under my shins. Wind alone set my pant cuffs flapping. The whiffed tail cracked into the wall, a dry boom rolling all the way down the passage.
Landed. Once more.
This time, the neck. From above, weight stacked on, straight down.
Skated again. The edge caught on a scale's rim for one instant — then, instead of stopping, flowed away toward the tail.
You're kidding me. Twice now.
The lizard reared its head.
The huge open mouth came raining down.
I took it with the blade sideways. Fangs clanged onto steel, and then it just PUSHED. My soles skidded back and back across the flagstone. The lizard's whole weight settled onto both my arms.
『Close one』
『He took it!』
Heavy. My arms are going number by the second.
And yet my heart's been sounding flat-out cheerful this whole time.
Scales right in front of my eyes — and looking closely, they all overlap the same direction, head to tail. Same as roof tiles.
Well, no wonder it skates when you stroke downward. Both my swings so far came from above, too.
So — go the other way.
I twisted the blade and streamed the fangs outside. The lizard's head slewed aside on its own momentum.
Half-step back.
The lizard reared its head again. Same motion as before — the pre-bite one.
The underside of its throat faced me.
In there.
From below, cutting upward against the overlap of the scales.
The edge slid in under the rims of them.
This time, it didn't skate.
The weight sank deep into my wrist, and I carried the cut all the way through.
Mouth still hanging open, the lizard took exactly one more step forward.
There was no second step. The huge body crumbled from the head end, and on the flagstone, a single dusky scale was left.
『Three hits』
『It went through!』
『He's doing Floor 20 lizards on a mass-produced sword?』
『That upward cut just now — wasn't it clean?』
I lowered the sword.
The numbness still sat in the core of my arms, and when I checked the edge, one small chip had opened in it. Run a thumb over it — gritty.
You're a 12,000-yen sword, and you did good work.
Viewer count: 240.
『Speed's not dropping』
『Three hours to Floor 20 is wrong, you know』
『Who IS this kid』
Nobody at all, just a high schooler... is what I'd like to say, but this is one of those lines that gets MORE suspicious the more you say it.
Floor 23, by my count.
Light showed at the end of the passage. A pale blue unlike all the others; up close, a circular pattern was carved into the floor.
The transfer circle.
I'd assumed it would sit one floor short of 25 — nope. The floor display said 25. Apparently I'd miscounted by two entire floors. Where did I even skip two?
"Oh — made it!"
『Eh』
『TWENTY-FIVE?!』
『Securing the transfer circle on day one lol』
『No, this one's genuinely strange』
A glance at my watch said 3:30 PM. Five and a half hours since I started in.
Overdone. By any measure, overdone.
I knew I was having fun. I KNEW — and I couldn't stop. Cut rats, cut lizards, clear a passage, take the stairs down; get that loop going and the sense of time just drains out. Same as when I dive alone — when I'm like this, the brakes don't bite.
Viewer count: 380.
The rate of increase had changed — what had been ten at a time was now double digits different every time I looked at the screen.
『It's spreading』
『Clips are up』
『15-year-old D-rank, Floor 25 on day one』
Clips. The instant I saw that word, two weeks ago came back to me. That time, too — it started with clips.
...Right. Going home today.
"That's all for today."
I stood on the transfer circle.
"Next time picks up from Floor 25. Uh — see you next week."
I pressed End Stream. Viewer count: 412.
Only the last comment that scrolled past really stuck in my eyes.
『This kid moves like someone I've seen somewhere』
I rode the transfer circle straight back to the surface.
Card to the reader, auth tone, and the tax came out. 420 yen. Apparently it's set by distance.
The surface air was different enough to hit me the instant I stepped out. Damp and warm, smelling like an April evening.
I sat on the bench outside the gate and opened my bag. Drops first.
Twenty-seven rat fangs and fourteen lizard scales, plus a few pebble-like shards.
Checked the going prices in the app: 4,200 yen, everything together.
"CHEAP!"
Five and a half hours of diving for 4,200 yen. Under 800 an hour — a convenience-store job pays better. Just earning back yesterday's sword means at least two more runs, by my math.
So THIS is what "lower-rank explorers can't feed themselves" means. Learned it firsthand.
Next, I opened my status.
Lv: 71 Job: 【Chuunibyou】 HP: 110 MP: 64 STR: 50 AGI: 58 INT: 75 LUK: 23
Two. Twenty-five floors down, and I went up two.
Well — only underlings spawn down there, so it figures. XP flows from killing things above you; farm below your level and barely anything stacks. That Emperor handing me 47 was the anomaly, nothing else.
And the numbers themselves are nothing special, either.
Which stats grow depends on the Job: a Heavy Knight's HP and STR skyrocket; a caster's INT and MP climb; a Dual Swordsman's, AGI. Extremes, in whatever direction they're built for.
【Chuunibyou】 is none of those. Everything, evenly low.
Compared to Miyake or Osawa right now, I win every column. I'm over three times their level — obviously I do.
But if we were the SAME level? Miyake's HP should be close to double mine. Osawa's AGI, at least double. Yamabuki's INT isn't even a comparison.
I'd lose every stat. Every single one, no exceptions. It's the number of my level alone that somehow keeps me level with them.
...Wait. Hold on.
Appraisal-day numbers. STR was 8 at Lv1 — under even the average of 15. Every stat below average, only INT barely above.
And now it's 50.
Isn't that rising too fast?
I looked up average growth rates by Job in the app. The explorer database has every statistic of that kind on file.
I checked the high-tier Jobs column, and did a double take at the screen.
Mine's higher.
Heavy Knight, Dual Swordsman, the caster lines — in growth per level, 【Chuunibyou】 beats them all. Low starting values, fast climbing. The gap shrinks as levels rise, and somewhere along the line, it passes them.
I see. Even after closing the app, my face hung loose for a while.
The King that me-from-back-then wrote was, in the end, the being who ends everything. Starts with nothing, ends up beyond everything — that was the setting, and I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever when I wrote it.
So it's probably coming true.
Oh — and right there, I remembered. Lv100. The level where the next skill unlocks. Vault of Tomes opened at Lv50, so next has to be 100.
I'm 71 now. Twenty-nine to go. At this pace, I get the feeling even the E-rank's full hundred floors won't reach it.
"Terrible efficiency."
Efficiency means challenging above my weight. But mid-stream, no becoming the King. What challenging up in base form gets you — I learned that three weeks ago, half-dead. That, I refuse to do twice.
As long as I'm streaming, I can barely get any stronger at all.
I leaned back on the bench and looked up at the sky. Textbook escapism.
...No — wait.
If E-rank is inefficient, then go D-rank.
I'm a D-rank explorer; the D-rank doors open for me. Recommended level goes up to 100 — I'm 71. The upper floors should be perfectly fightable, and D-rank XP isn't remotely comparable to E-rank.
The only question is whether the mass-produced iron sword cuts it.
...It does not.
I remembered the blade skating off Orc Soldier armor at the Chikusa exam. That was Floor 3 of a D-rank — the borrowed sword didn't leave a dent. And today, even the E-rank Floor 20 lizard skated me twice; the third try finally bit through, and the edge came away chipped.
So what do I do? There's exactly one answer. Bring out Nameless.
On stream: call a katana out of the void. Chant included.
Can I actually do that?
Standing up, walking toward my bike, I thought it over. The weapon-summoning skill itself isn't something I have to hide. It's rare, that's all — no crime, no nothing. A world-first Job sprouting one weird skill would surprise nobody anyway.
The problem is the chant.
"—No inscription, no meaning — cut, Nameless." Said in front of hundreds of watching people.
Pedaling home, I let out a small breath.
Well. I'll leave that part to next week's me. Today's me is already tired.