chapter02 · 043-ep37
Episode 37: Golden Week Is Almost Here
At Friday morning homeroom, the teacher made an announcement.
"All right — a notice. Golden Week starts next week."
The classroom rustled all at once.
"Keep your daily rhythm in order over the break. Don't stay up too late. Aaand—"
She beamed.
"When Golden Week ends, we'll announce the midterm exam scope. Late May. Do open your textbooks a little over the break, all right?"
The classroom's temperature dropped in an instant.
"Ugh..."
"I didn't want to hear that..."
"Sensei, did that NEED saying before break?!"
Wails rose from every corner.
As for me, only the first half of the teacher's announcement had entered my head.
Golden Week.
Next week.
Days and days of not-school in a row.
No school.
Meaning: from morning to night, diving.
"Hehe."
"Ichinose-kun, why are you smiling about the exam news?"
Yano beside me was squinting at me, suspicious.
"Huh? Exams?"
"She just said 'midterm exams.'"
"She did?"
"You weren't LISTENING?!"
"I heard everything up to Golden Week. Perfectly."
"You skipped the single most important part!"
Come break time, the classroom was wall-to-wall Golden Week.
"What're you doing over break?"
"Family trip. Okinawa."
"Lucky! I've got club the whole time, myself."
"I'm going to my fave's live show!"
Happy plans flew back and forth in every direction.
Yano turned her whole chair around.
"Hey, hey — Ichinose-kun, what are you doing for Golden Week?"
"Dungeon. Only answer."
Zero hesitation.
"...No, I mean — going somewhere, that stuff."
"That's what I said. Going to a dungeon."
"That's not what I meant!"
"I have no plans to go anywhere that isn't a dungeon."
"He actually said it!"
Yano flopped face-first onto her desk.
"Ehhh — it's Golden Week, though? And here I was thinking we'd all go karaoke or something."
"Ah — that I'm in for. If it's a day or so."
"JUST a day?"
"The rest is all dungeons!"
"ALL of it?!"
Matoba snorted from the back seats.
"Ichinose, you really do love dungeons."
"I do. I love them beyond reason."
"I mean, I get it, I do. But the entire break? Isn't that insane? Normal people do a day, maybe two."
"Huh. Do they?"
Hearing it put that way, I thought about it a little.
Now that he mentions it, at the beginning it feels like I was diving for reasons. "To raise my level." "To make money." Things like that.
And lately?
First thought on waking: how far can I get today. Thought during class: the next floor. Thought before sleep: the movements of the monsters I killed that day.
"Honestly? Because it's just fun, I guess."
It fell straight out of my mouth.
Matoba's eyes went round.
"R-right..."
"No, not in a weird way. Dungeons don't have a single repeated spot. Every floor's different, every monster moves differently — the other day there was even pottery set into the walls, and—"
"Ichinose-kun, you're picking up speed."
At Yano's words, I closed my mouth.
Kuzumi, in the seat behind, was laughing softly.
"...Good for you. Having something you love."
"Hehe. Thanks."
Lunch break. I opened the Guild site on my phone.
There was something I wanted to check.
Explorer Rank-Up Requirements.
Scrolling down the page. F→E, E→D. That stretch is behind me.
D→C.
【C-Rank Promotion Requirements】
- Have reached the prescribed total of taxes paid
- Have reached the deepest floor (Floor 150) of a D-rank dungeon designated by the branch in question (designated dungeon) ※ Nagoya branch designated dungeons: Toda (Nakagawa Ward), plus several other locations in and near the city ※ Arrival is confirmed via the Guild card's transfer-circle record
Opened the designated-dungeon list. Several near Nagoya.
Among them, one caught my eye.
"Toda, huh."
I'd heard the name. A D-rank at Nagoya's western edge, out where there's nothing but rice fields. The least convenient location among the designated dungeons, and the inside is flooded so your gear gets soaked — least popular of the lot, if I remember right from a guy in the explorer course.
This one, then.
And Floor 150.
My current deepest is Akazu's Floor 50. But Akazu isn't a designated dungeon, so it doesn't count.
Toda: Floor 1 to Floor 150.
Considered normally, an outrageous number. The deepest floor of a D-rank is a place people reach by diving, and diving, for years. C-rank being called "professional" — apparently this is what it means.
But.
As the King, I reached Akazu's Floor 50 in a day.
Fifty floors a day — that's 150 in three days.
How many days does Golden Week have?
Counting on my fingers. Saturday, Sunday, then the holidays in a row—
"It might just be doable."
It came out loud.
Beside me, Yano, mid-yakisoba-bread, froze.
"What's doable?"
"Nothing, nothing."
"There is DEFINITELY something! That face was plotting, full throttle!"
"It wasn't."
It was.
The tax side isn't there yet. But the deeper you go, the higher drop prices climb. Sell what lies beyond Floor 50, and it should be reached. Probably.
The problem: unpopular or not, Toda is still a designated dungeon.
D-ranks aiming for C-rank commute to some designated dungeon or another. "Zero people" isn't a thing that happens. Diving in secret as the King stays exactly as hard as ever.
What's more — if the fifteen-year-old D-rank "Dungeon Strolls" next goes gunning for C-rank...
Somewhere among the designated dungeons, there'll be stakeouts waiting, won't there.
"Nnnngh..."
I clutched my head.
Yano, yakisoba bread still in hand, was watching me steadily.
"Ichinose-kun — is this exam stress?"
"No, no."
"Dungeon stress?"
"Correct."
"Knew it."
Yano laughed, exasperated.
And then the corridor stirred.
I don't even need to look anymore. Third time this week.
The crowd of people parted, and Tono-senpai walked straight over.
Today, nobody in class sold me out. Before anyone could, every last one of them cleared a path. Apparently they'd gotten used to it.
I would prefer they didn't.
"Ichinose-kun."
"Ah — Tono-senpai. Hello."
"Hello."
Tono-senpai stopped in front of my desk.
Then went quiet for a moment.
She seemed to be trying to say something, and to be picking her words. The first two times, she was someone who simply asked, straight out, whatever she wanted to know. I'd never seen this face on her before.
"...Golden Week. Are you free?"
"Huh?"
"Would you... dive with me?"
The classroom went dead silent.
Beside me, Yano dropped her yakisoba bread.
"M-me?!"
"Yeah."
"W-why me? There are plenty of stronger people out there."
Tono-senpai went quiet a moment again.
"...I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I can't put it well. But—"
Tono-senpai looked at me, intently.
The same probing eyes as the first time she came.
"When I watch you, Ichinose-kun, something snags. Not strong, not fast — something besides that."
"Something... besides..."
"There's no reason. I just want to see you up close."
My heart gave one heavy thud.
Snags.
Something besides.
The Nanyo thing? No — she settled that as "imagination" already. The voice, the way of speaking, they should have been different.
But Tono-senpai said nothing more than that. She really didn't seem to know her own reason.
"What about your Stellarion work?"
"Over Golden Week, there's one day I'm free. It isn't settled yet, though."
"I-I see."
I had reasons to refuse, as many as I liked.
With Tono-senpai along, I can't become the King. The voice might give me away. If anyone spotted an idol and me diving a dungeon as a pair, that alone would be a sensation.
But.
I was asked to dive together.
Invited — to a dungeon.
And that, plainly, made me happy.
"I—I'm in!"
My mouth moved before the rest of me.
Tono-senpai's eyes widened, just barely.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes! If it's a dungeon, I'll go anywhere. Please, let me come."
"...Why is THAT where the energy spikes?"
"Show me one person who gets invited to a dungeon and isn't happy."
"...You really are a strange person."
Tono-senpai smiled, a little.
Then she took out her phone and turned the screen toward me.
A chat-app ID was displayed.
"I'll contact you about the date. This."
"Huh— ah— yes."
I scrambled my own phone out and typed in the ID. Hit the add-friend button, and the name "Tono Akari" appeared on screen.
Her icon wasn't a Stellarion promo shot — it was a photo of some dungeon's entrance.
"See you."
"Y-yes! Awaiting your message."
That was all she said, and she turned on her heel. The crowd parted again.
Until her back disappeared from view, nobody in the classroom spoke.
The instant it disappeared, eruption.
"YOU EXCHANGED CONTACT INFO?!"
"WITH TONO AKARI?!"
"Ichinose, what ARE you?"
"We just promised to hit a dungeon."
"'JUST'?!"
Yano was face-down on her desk, not even retrieving the yakisoba bread fallen on the floor.
"...Tono Akari... a dungeon... contact info..."
"Yano, your bread."
"...Now is not the time..."
From the back seat, Kuzumi murmured, small.
"...'Snags,' was it."
When I looked his way, he was gazing out the window with a perfectly unremarkable face.
After school, my phone buzzed.
The middle-school group.
Osawa: "What's everyone doing for Golden Week?"
Osawa: "Let's dive a day, all five."
Miyake: "Yes! Moriyama's F-rank again!"
Yamabuki: "I'm free up to three days, fyi."
Fujidou: "Saku?"
Saku: "I'm in!"
Sent — then I thought a second, and fired off one more.
Saku: "One day only, though."
Osawa: "ONE DAY?!"
Miyake: "And the rest?"
Saku: "Dungeons."
Osawa: "That's just dungeons!"
Yamabuki: "Saku, aren't you a LITTLE too hooked on dungeons lol"
Saku: "I'm hooked."
Saku: "HOOKED BEYOND REASON!"
Four read receipts.
A short gap — then one message, from Fujidou and no one else.
Fujidou: "I know."
He knew.
Well. It's Fujidou.
That night.
After dinner, in my room, I spread open a notebook.
An ordinary notebook. Properly unpainted black, this time. Bought for classes, brand new, not one page used.
On page one, I wrote it big.
【Golden Week Plan】
Beneath it, the days in a column.
Day 1: middle-school crew, Moriyama (F-rank) Day 2: high-school crew, karaoke Day 3: Toda (D-rank) Day 4: Toda (D-rank) Day 5: Toda (D-rank) Day 6: Toda (D-rank) Day 7: Toda (D-rank) Day ?: with Tono-senpai (date TBD)
Finished, I looked it over.
Almost nothing but dungeons.
Karaoke gets exactly one day mixed in; everything else is dungeons. Day 1's F-rank? Also a dungeon.
"Perfect."
Just as I nodded, satisfied, a knock hit the door.
"Big brooother, bath's freeee!"
Seina. The door opened before I could answer.
Seina's eyes were magnetized to the notebook on the desk.
"...What's that?"
"Golden Week plan. Wanna look?"
"Show me!"
I showed her. Nothing worth hiding.
Seina pored over the notebook, eyes running top to bottom.
Then, slowly, raised her face.
"...Big bro."
"Hm? What?"
"THERE'S NOTHING BUT DUNGEONS!"
"Yeah. Perfect, right?"
"'Yeah'?! Where's the STUDY day?!"
"Huh?"
"We have midterms, you know! My school has them too!"
"Ahh..."
Completely forgotten.
"I'll think about it later."
"You're SO the type who never thinks about it later!"
As Seina was mid-yell, one more set of footsteps came up the hallway.
Big sis. Lounge hoodie, hair still damp.
"...What's the racket?"
"Big sis, look. Big bro's Golden Week plan — basically all dungeons!"
Big sis pored over the notebook, eyes running top to bottom.
Then looked at me.
The usual, brief silence.
"...No study day."
"I'll slot one in later."
"You're making the face of a man who won't."
"What face. I'll slot it in."
Big sis wore a slightly considering expression.
Then, with my pen, she added one line at the very bottom of the page.
Day 7 (final day): study ← this one takes priority
"Huh — study gets that day?"
"Final day. One day only."
"Ehh..."
"One day only."
The voice allowed no appeal.
"Fiiine."
Big sis nodded, satisfied, and handed back my pen.
And then, just on her way out the door, without turning:
"You look like you're having fun. Good."
The door closed.
Seina looked back and forth between the shut door and my face.
"...Was big sis just a tiny bit happy, there?"
"Was she?"
"DEFINITELY happy. She's over the moon that you love dungeons!"
"Huh. If so, that's kind of nice."
"It is! Big sis is a diehard dungeon-lover herself, you know."
With that, and a yell of "Your bath's going cold!", Seina left.
Out of the bath, into the futon.
Lights off. Ceiling.
Golden Week starts next week.
No — wait.
Tomorrow is Saturday. A day off.
Which means tomorrow, too, I can dive.
The opening battle of Golden Week.
"Hehe."
Grinning there in the covers.
Eyes closed.
Where to tomorrow? Nagakute, or Nisshin. How many floors can I make? What monsters will come out? Will there be a boss? If there is, what kind?
The more I thought, the wider awake I got.
The night before my first Kanayama dive, back before school started, it was like this too — nerves, and not a wink of sleep.
But this time is different.
Not nerves.
Too excited to sleep.
Floor 150. C-rank. Golden Week.
In the futon, I made a small fist, and rolled over, and over, and over.
In the end, I didn't fall asleep until past two.