chapter02 · 034-ep30
Episode 30: Shouting My Dark History in Front of Hundreds
Nope. Way too hard.
I looked one more time at the shoulder plate the blade had skated off. Hit that spot a hundred times, and it'd probably go the same way every time.
The Captain heaved its axe up.
The overhead chop — I jumped sideways out of its way. The axe head struck the floor with a grating sound that stayed in my ears. It rose again at once, and this time came in horizontal. Wind howled clean over my ducked head.
Fast. But my eyes were getting used to it.
The arc was simple, and the swings were big, so the recovery was slow. After a full swing, the axe's own weight dragged the body around, and it stalled for one beat. The metal plate only covered shoulder and chest — the joints were bare.
『Nice dodging』
『Can he actually see this thing』
The next axe, I didn't dodge. I stepped in. Slipped inside the falling arc, and in passing, laid the blade into the back of the Captain's knee.
The huge body buckled onto one knee, and its head sank to exactly my eye level.
The neck.
By the time my cut was through, what reached me first was the sound of the axe hitting the floor. The Captain's body tipped forward slowly, as if chasing that sound, and turned to sand before it reached the ground.
『Down』
『Huh?』
『The Captain took under two minutes』
『A normal party needs ten』
Wait, seriously? If you get a full ten minutes of playtime with that thing, isn't that the better deal?
I lowered the katana and breathed out. That was kind of fun. The orcs and the Orc Soldiers had all ended in one hit, so it'd been a while since anything took two or more.
"Alright. On to the next."
Viewer count: 520. Up a little from last week's stream. The spread from the boards seems to be sticking around, as-is.
Incidentally, none of the four came today. Miyake had club, Osawa's got a part-time job. Yamabuki was off diving his own dungeon, and Fujidou — no idea. Homework or something, probably.
It's not like I ever asked them to show up every time, and honestly, this is easier.
At this pace, I should make Floor 20 today.
On Floor 15, I came out into a wide room.
Walls on all four sides, a descending staircase visible at the far end. Nothing in between — a pure pass-through room. Without a thought in my head, I walked straight across the middle of it.
My foot stepped on something. The flagstone sank.
"Huh?!"
A heavy boom behind me. I turned — the passage I'd come in through was gone. A stone wall was coming down from the ceiling, its edge grinding home into the floor. The far staircase too.
"Oh, come ON!"
I ran to the wall, put a hand on it, pushed. Not a millimeter. Sealed in.
『Whoa』
『It's a trap』
『A monster trap — this is it』
『the one they've got on Floor 15』
The pattern on the floor started glowing red, and the ground swelled up in all four corners of the room. What came out were orcs.
Not one. Four. No — eight. Twelve. Still coming. Every time the floor's glow flared, new ones welled up.
『This is bad』
『The one where you can't get out till they're all dead』
『Not something you step on solo』
『Somebody call someone he knows』
『Clipping this and passing it around』
Do NOT clip this! I'm the one sealed in here!
The viewer count moved. 520 became 600, then 700, then 850.
Also — nobody told me a trap like this existed.
I'd looked up Chikusa's data beforehand. The monsters, the layout of every floor — I'd gone through all of it. But trap locations weren't in there. Well, obviously not. That's find-it-with-your-own-eyes material.
And I do have a way to find it. The Magic Eye of Discernment. The one that shows where traps are. I have it. I'm holding it right now.
If I'd been the King, I'd have seen it. Absolutely seen it, and never stepped on it.
I'm not, though. And I can't be. Not with 800 people watching.
Eight hundred people. Eight hundred people, watching. In THIS situation, I'm supposed to declare myself? No way. Absolutely, definitively no way.
The first three charged in, riding the momentum of their own spawning.
The one in front raised its club. I slipped past its flank and cut through the midsection of the one beside it. On the turn, the back of the front one. Ducking under the third one's club, cut upward from below. Three gray bodies collapsed into sand, one after another.
With Nameless, one hit does it. The fourth and the fifth were the same.
Honestly, I was starting to have fun. Surrounded, and still thinning them out one at a time, clean. I can see every movement, and every swing lands.
I really do love this stuff.
But when I cut the sixth, the floor flashed. Four new ones were spawning.
『They're replenishing』
『New ones spawn every kill?』
『There should be a fixed total, though』
The total, huh. With this type of trap, cutting down a set number should end it. The problem is, I don't know that number.
One of the fresh-spawned ones charged in first, dead ahead. Same as before — step in, swing.
Gank — stopped dead.
A club had been thrust in sideways, right into the katana's path. Numbness ran back up the blocked blade to my elbow.
Huh, no way. They were dying in one hit until a minute ago.
The arm bearing down on me was thick. This one's strength is a different league from the earlier ones. I didn't contest the shove — pulled the katana back and gave half a step. The club, its force suddenly homeless, cracked through empty air, and the orc's body swayed forward with it.
Two hits to that neck. Only then did it finally become sand. The late-spawning ones are strong.
The tenth. The fifteenth. Still spawning.
A glance at the viewer count: 1,200. Still climbing.
『It's spreading』
『This one's a watch-it-live』
『Solo on the Floor 15 trap, seriously?』
People are gathering. I'm fighting for my life over here, but from their side, it's just a good stream. Well — I'm the one who decided to stream, so no complaints from me.
One at a time is no problem at all, and even the late-spawned ones die in two. But fighting them simultaneously is another story.
Three in front, two on my right, two on my left. They're circling behind me too.
In the time it takes to cut the one in front, the two on the right close a step. Sweep right, and the left ones come in. Every one I kill, another fills the gap, and no matter how much I swing, the ring doesn't thin.
Somewhere past the twentieth, impact took me in the back. A club.
Every scrap of breath left me; my vision bounced. My knee struck the flagstone.
"Ngh— g, ah"
That HURT...
Air won't come in. My lungs aren't moving.
Stand up. Stand UP. Stay down and you die.
I drove strength into my knee. It held.
"Ha, haha"
I was laughing. Even I'm wondering what's funny. Punched in the back, can't breathe, surrounded — there is not one single thing going right.
And still, I stood. The me of a month ago probably couldn't have.
『He got hit』
『Bad』
『This is genuinely bad』
I swept the katana around me in a wide arc, blasted two of them away, and opened a gap. But the floor flashed again.
It is not ending. Kill them and kill them and they keep coming — how many are LEFT?
HP. No time to check. I've got 110, you know. A high-tier Job at this level would have double that. How much did that one hit take? Thirty? Forty?
No idea. No idea — but I know I can't take many more. My hands are shaking and my breathing's gone shallow.
Ah. This is that time all over again.
Killing them one by one, getting surrounded, and then suddenly I was getting smashed into a wall — that. Cracked ribs, twenty hours before I made it home.
I can't do that twice. I have to wipe them out all at once. And the means exist. They exist, but.
At the edge of my vision, the drone was tracking me. The lens ring glowed black, and the viewer count was 1,800.
A club came in from the right.
I'd been watching the drone; my reaction lagged. I set the katana to block, and the weight drove my arms down with it. My braced feet skated across the flagstone, and the impact rang dully through my struck back. I can't push it back.
From the front, another one was already bearing down on me, club raised.
I let the blocked club escape outward and rolled across the floor. The front one's club howled through the exact spot my head had just left. Coming out of the roll, I tried to rise — and my knee nearly dropped out from under me.
A month ago I really was about to die, so there was no room to feel shy. Right now, I can still move. It's the half-measures of composure that have some corner of my brain going "well, I mean, come on..."
If I use anything, it's the holy sword. The one me-from-back-then wrote with the most fire he had, right at the top of the holy-sword page. And I'd be shouting its two lines, straight-faced, in front of 1,800 people.
No way. Just no way.
One of the orcs leapt. As I dodged and landed, a different one's club grazed my shoulder.
"Ngh— ow...!"
That hurts.
No. No — what am I doing? Is this the time to hesitate? You'll DIE.
Embarrassment or death — which one wins? That's not even a question.
It's not even a question, and I hesitated three seconds. Life on the line, and I spent three of them on embarrassment. I am genuinely not right in the head.
But it's decided now. Breathe in.
The first syllable caught in the back of my throat.
No good. Flub it and it weakens. Saying it half-heartedly is the worst possible option. So then — say it at full power.
"—Gather, light. Banish the night, scorch the shadows, leave no trace"
My own voice rang through the stone room. It's out.
Nameless vanished from my hand, and in its place, something white began to take shape.
Ah — now might be the moment to abort. It's only line one.
No. Impossible. Abort now and I'm holding no weapon at all. What's in my hand is still just light that hasn't finished being anything. And the whole time, the ring of orcs is inching in, tighter and tighter.
Whatever. I don't care anymore.
"—Pierce the heavens, Radius!"
I said the whole thing. My face is hot. Mid-battle, and my face alone is burning for a completely different reason.
Two lines. Nameless is one line — add a single line, and the felt weight triples.
A sword settled into my hand.
A straight blade of silver-white. Long and true, giving off its own light. The exact opposite of jet-black Nameless.
【Heaven-Piercing Radiance】. The reading: Radius. The moment I took my stance, the blade rang.
As that sound shivered the air of the room, light came gathering. It overflowed from the tip and shoved back the room's dark, all the way to the walls. The orcs' shadows stretched long across the floor.
It's bright. I'm the one holding it, and I can barely look at it.
Every orc turned on me at once. Along the walls, new ones were still crawling out of the floor pattern. In the room, easily sixty. No — still growing.
The roar of the one in front was the signal, and the gray ring surged in from all four sides at once.
Fine by me. All of you.
I swung.
Light crossed the room. There was no sound. A single white line simply ran through it.
From wherever the line touched, they vanished, in order. The three in front, the two on the right, the two on the left, and the ones half-crawled out along the walls. No cuts, no scorch marks — nothing left behind.
The line reached the wall, and ended there.
The room's light drained slowly away, and the floor pattern faded from red back to its original color. The sealed walls rumbled upward.
It was over.
Even with the sword lowered, my fingers wouldn't come off the grip. I'd squeezed too hard; my hand had locked.
My back hurts, my shoulder's grazed, but I'm alive. Saved... My heart is still going like a drum.
Ah.
The moment I remembered, the blood drained out of my face. Slowly, I raised my head.
The drone was there. The lens pointed straight at me, the recording ring glowing black.
Riiiight. It filmed that.
Well, obviously. I'm mid-stream. That's what I brought it for.
Line one. Line two. All of it.
So what was Monday's plan, then — "summon it before going live so nobody hears the chant"?
The comments stalled for a second, two — and then came flooding.
『Ha』
『Ha?』
『What WAS that』
『Wait』
『Wait wait wait』
『Sixty of them just vanished』
『In ONE swing?』
『No, forget that — the wall』
『Look at the wall』
『Huh?』
『It's damaged』
『Aren't dungeon walls indestructible?』
『They are』
『They're supposed to be, anyway』
『Everyone who just saw that, be my witness』
I think the word "wall" scrolled past a few times. But what I was staring at was somewhere else entirely.
『It's a holy sword』
『He chanted』
『He said 'Gather, light. Banish the night, scorch the shadows, leave no trace'』
『He did』
『He definitely did』
The viewer count jumped. 1,800 broke 3,000, then 4,000, then 5,000. It wouldn't stop. The number that was 520 this morning had gone tenfold. Wait — tenfold? What even is that?
I stood rooted to the spot, the silver-white sword still in my hand.
Say something. I have to say something. If I stay silent now, this gets even stranger than it already is.
Uhh.
"That was staging"? Who'd believe that? My life was on the line — nobody has spare capacity for staging.
"It's that kind of skill"? ...That one's true. It is true — but then the question becomes why I recite two whole lines.
Why two lines, me-from-back-then? ONE would have done. One.
I opened my mouth, nothing came out, so I closed it. Opened it again, closed it again. What am I, a goldfish?
This is a tighter pinch than the orcs had me in a minute ago.
What I finally squeezed out was this:
"T-today, we'll end it here."
『Eh』
『That's so sudden?』
『Explain』
『EXPLAIN』
『Wait, don't go』
"I'm tired."
Not a lie. My back hurts, my shoulder's grazed, and my head is way past its limit. If I stay in this room, I will absolutely say something I shouldn't.
"See you next week. Thanks for watching."
I pressed End Stream. The comments were flowing right to the very end, but I didn't read them. If I read them, I probably wouldn't sleep tonight.
I surfaced a little before three in the afternoon.
Cashed my drops at the Chikusa branch and sat down on a bench. First: the money.
Seventy-eight orc fangs. Twenty-three Orc Soldier armor plates. Plus one fragment of the Captain's axe. The whole haul from the trap room rode along with it.
Total: 114,000 yen.
Ooh. A different digit count from the E-rank's 4,200. This is not an amount a high schooler should be pulling in on a Sunday half-day. ...Well, I guess that's just what the explorer job is.
Next: status. Opened the screen.
Lv: 90
"Huh?"
Wait. This morning I was 74, right? Sixteen levels. Sixteen, in half a day?
Oh — right. The trap room.
Sealed in, and I killed close to ninety of them. And the spawned ones were clearly stronger than the standard individuals.
The trap was the worst, but purely on XP efficiency, nothing beats it. Honestly, I half want to go looking for another one.
No — bad. I nearly died to it today.
Checked the numbers too.
HP: 136 MP: 79 STR: 63 AGI: 72 INT: 93 LUK: 26
Everything's up. LUK alone keeps growing like garbage, but whatever, I give up on you. You've always been that kind of guy.
Lv90. Ten to Lv100. The next skill is right in front of my eyes now. Keep diving D-rank at this pace, and I might reach it by next week.
I put my phone away and headed for my bike. My back hurts, but hey — Lv90. Netting it all out... let's just call it a decent day.