chapter02 · 047-ep41
Episode 41: A Tsundere Can't Hide It
Even after the commotion on Floor 35's channel, the three of us kept diving.
Strangely, it meshed.
Akane-senpai took the hits, Tono-senpai cut, and I fired attributes from the back. Lightning for enemies in the water, wind for the ones hiding in the rice shade, earth for the hard-shelled ones.
On Floor 42, something sprang from the shade of the rice.
A long snake in a reed-like dull green. Reed Snake. One size thicker than the ones I'd cut on Floor 15.
It slipped past Tono-senpai's flank ahead of me and came at me in a dead straight line, skimming the water.
The target: me. The one in the very rear holding a staff — the one who looked softest.
I swung the staff up. The fangs were faster than any shout.
A shield cut in before my eyes.
GANK — a heavy sound. The snake's head bounced off the shield and dropped to the water.
Akane-senpai.
The fallen snake reared its head right back up — and Tono-senpai, sprinting back, swept that neck aside with her sword.
"You okay? Not hurt?"
"Th-thank you very much. You saved me."
"It's a tank's job."
Said lightly, with the outward-facing smile.
— Or so I thought, until Akane-senpai's gaze stopped on my feet.
"...Hey."
"Yes?"
"Your feet are soaked through. There's water in your shoes, isn't there."
"Ah, this? I fell in the channel earlier."
"'Fell in,' he says! Keep that up and you'll blister, and you'll catch cold. Do you have spare socks?"
"Um — I didn't bring any."
"Why would you NOT bring any!"
Akane-senpai set her shield on the ground and started rummaging through her own bag.
"...Here."
What she held out was a brand-new pair of socks.
"They're Akari's spares. That girl always soaks hers somewhere, so I carry two pairs."
"Huh — are you sure? Thank you very much."
"D-don't get the wrong idea — it's not for you! If my back-liner catches a cold, the party's in trouble, that's all!"
Her face was red.
Confirmed: this person is a tsundere.
The perfect smile from minutes ago had gone somewhere else entirely.
Then Akane-senpai coughed, as if snapping back to herself, scooped up her shield, and spun around.
"Akari — just now, your flank was half-leaking too. WATCH properly!"
"I was watching."
"You were not. When you get absorbed, you stop seeing around you!"
"Akane. You worry too much."
"I-I'm not worrying! Pointing things out, that's all!"
Tono-senpai smiled, troubled — but a little pleased.
"Akane — you've started looking after Ichinose-kun too."
"I have NOT!"
"You gave him socks."
"That was party management. MANAGEMENT!"
"Thank you for the management. I will wear these socks with care."
Akane-senpai glared at me with unbelievable eyes. Her face was still red.
On Floor 45, it was waiting.
The entire floor had become one vast paddy. No levee paths. Water to the knee, spreading without end.
No rice growing either. On the mirror-flat surface, the ceiling's vague light was reflected.
Too quiet.
Tono-senpai stopped, hand already on her sword's hilt. Akane-senpai silently brought her shield forward.
And at the very center, the water slowly heaved upward.
Master Catfish Difficulty: D (higher)
It was enormous.
A black catfish with a body the size of an entire paddy field. Whiskers thicker than my arm. At either end of its flat head, one small eye each, glinting wetly.
The heave raised the water level; it climbed past my knees.
That huge — and it had surfaced without a single sound.
My heart gave one heavy jump.
"...! Akari — get back!"
"You too, Akane!"
The catfish twisted its body.
The water rose like a wall and came surging at us.
Akane-senpai braced her shield and stepped out. She took the wave head-on; her feet skated in the water. She was shoved back — a full two meters — and still did not fall.
"Akane!"
Tono-senpai moved to dive in — but the water and mud had her feet; the step-in had no power.
In water, neither of them could move at full strength.
Then.
Make footing.
"—O earth!"
I drove the staff into the water's surface.
From the bottom, earth heaved up. A small platform, just big enough for one person. One wasn't enough.
"—O earth, O earth, O earth!"
"THAT'S TOO MUCH SHOUTING!"
Taking Akane-senpai's tsukkomi on my back, I extended the platforms toward the catfish, dot by dot.
From here — too far.
I leapt onto the first platform myself. Second, third. Hopping across, adding footing ahead.
"Tono-senpai — there!"
"...!"
Tono-senpai kicked off a platform. One, two, three. As if bouncing across the water, she blew past my side and sprinted for the catfish's head.
The catfish reared a whisker.
"Not happening!"
Akane-senpai leapt onto a platform and caught the whisker on her shield.
In that gap, Tono-senpai jumped from the last platform.
The slim sword swung down at the side of the catfish's head.
It bit. I thought.
The blade skated, slick, across the black skin. Carried off by the slime — nothing but one shallow scratch.
The catfish thrashed.
Its huge body writhed through the water; its tail hammered the surface. A boom rang in the gut, and the whole paddy rippled.
The platforms shook. Starting from the ones nearest the catfish, they crumbled back into lumps of mud.
The flailing whisker struck Akane-senpai's shield dead from the side.
GANK.
Shield and all, Akane-senpai was sent flying. Hurled off the platform, she hit the water on her back.
"Akane!"
Tono-senpai screamed from the half-collapsed platform. The second whisker came for her too. She leapt back and barely landed on the platform one behind.
A whisker came at me as well.
I ducked. Over my head, the thick whisker howled past. The torn-up water slapped my face sideways.
Strong.
From the water, Akane-senpai pushed herself up on her shield. Face drenched, she reset the shield in front.
"I'm fine! Still good!"
The catfish reared its whiskers again.
Its head hauled up out of the water.
I could see it.
The middle of that flat head. The broad, flat stretch between the small eyes.
The last stroke had come in angled, from the side. That's why it slid off the round skin.
But that spot is flat. Straight down from directly above — nowhere to slide.
"Tono-senpai — from above! Between the eyes!"
Tono-senpai looked at me.
Once, she nodded.
"—O earth!"
Fresh earth heaved up over the collapsed platforms. Tono-senpai stamped on it and advanced.
The catfish's whisker came down at Tono-senpai.
Ahead of it, Akane-senpai dove in.
This time, she wasn't thrown off. Shoulder into the shield, she took the whisker head-on. The platform groaned and sank.
In that gap—
"—O wind — at her back!"
I sent wind to Tono-senpai's back.
Her body lifted, weightless.
Higher than the catfish's head.
The slim sword swung down, dead vertical, from directly above.
Between the eyes.
This time, it didn't slide.
The blade sank to the hilt. The catfish's huge body shuddered, once. The raised whiskers lost their strength and slowly drooped.
Tono-senpai kicked off the sinking head and leapt back to a platform.
The catfish went down in a burst of spray.
Waves washed the platforms' edges a few times. Then it was still.
After a while, one large magic core bobbed up to the surface.
"...We did it."
On the platform, Tono-senpai's shoulders heaved with her breathing.
The fingers on my staff wouldn't open. Apparently I'd been gripping it full-strength the whole time without noticing.
"We DID it, Akari!"
"Yeah...! Akane — Ichinose-kun — thank you."
"That was brilliant, Tono-senpai. Unbelievably cool."
Akane-senpai came back across the platforms and stopped in front of me.
She stared at me.
"...Hey. You."
"Yes?"
"What even ARE you?"
"Huh?"
"Katana, dual blades, and now a staff — making footholds, pushing people's backs with wind. Why can you use ALL of them?"
"W-well..."
I tried to answer and jammed up.
Why, though.
The katana, sure. Three years of dojo in middle school.
But the dojo taught me katana and nothing else. I'd never held dual swords in my life; never once swung a staff.
"I-I trained. At a dojo."
"No dojo on this earth teaches staff-work."
"Right, yeah—"
Right.
Now that she mentions it — me being able to use all of it, isn't that strange?
"...Whatever."
Akane-senpai sighed. Then, in a small voice:
"The footholds, earlier. They helped."
"Huh — did you just praise me?"
"I-I was NOT praising you! I stated a fact, that's all!"
The ears of Akane-senpai, now facing pointedly away, were bright red.
We reached Floor 50 a little past five in the afternoon.
At the center of the wide flooded field, a transfer circle glowed.
"...We're here."
Tono-senpai let out a small breath.
"Floor 50. Our first time."
"You DID it, Akari!"
Akane-senpai pounded Tono-senpai's shoulders — then, catching herself, gave my shoulder exactly one slap, like an afterthought.
The three of us held our Guild cards over it in turn. For those two, a first registration.
Straight back to the surface on the transfer circle. Outside, the sky had started turning orange.
The three of us sat on the bench in front of the field office.
Akane-senpai took a sip of tea from her water bottle, then held out a towel for Tono-senpai.
"Here. Wipe off the sweat."
"Thanks."
"And stretch the second you're home. Your legs will come for you tomorrow."
"Yeah."
Then Akane-senpai produced a second towel and thrust it toward me.
"...Here. You too."
"Huh — I get one too?"
"It's a bonus! A bonus! I had one extra!"
"Thank you very much. Bonus or not, I'm happy."
"And YOU stretch when you get home too. Back-liners use their legs same as anyone. Don't wash the socks — just toss them. Ah, but dry those wet shoes properly — stuff them with newspaper—"
She got that far in one breath — and shut her mouth.
She seemed to realize what she'd been saying.
Her face went redder than the sunset.
"...F-forget all of that."
"Impossible. It's memorized."
"FORGET IT!"
The morning's smile, the one like a thick wall — it was nowhere anymore.
Beside her, Tono-senpai was laughing quietly.
"Ichinose-kun."
"Yes?"
"Today — thank you."
Tono-senpai was looking out at the paddies lit by the sunset.
"It was so easy to dive with you. With you at my back, I feel safe."
"Glad to hear it. I had a ridiculous amount of fun too."
"Let's dive together again."
"Absolutely! Next time let's go even deeper."
Tono-senpai turned toward me.
She tilted her head, just a little.
Those eyes again — the ones that seemed to be checking something.
"...Hey."
"Hm?"
"I really do feel like we've met somewhere."
My heart gave one heavy thud.
"Earlier — the combo spell. The voice you shouted it in... somehow..."
Tono-senpai stopped there.
A face trying to remember something, and failing.
"...No. It's probably nothing after all."
"R-right! It's nothing! Nothing at all!"
"...Why is THAT where you get your energy back?"
"No real reason."
Akane-senpai was watching me with flat, suspicious eyes.
"...Hey. You."
"Yes."
"Do anything weird to Akari, and I won't forgive you."
"I WON'T!"
"Somehow the instant answer is annoying too."
Akane-senpai folded her arms and faced away.
Then, still facing away, she added, low:
"...And you too, for the record."
"Huh?"
"You're a back-liner and you push way too far forward. During the catfish, you were out at the front edge of the footholds, weren't you. Do it again and I'll hit you with my shield."
"Wait, is that you worrying about—"
"I'm NOT! Not even slightly! Party management! MANAGEMENT!"
Beside the scarlet-faced, shouting Akane-senpai, Tono-senpai's shoulders were shaking without a sound.
On the train home, I opened my status.
Lv: 122
With company, today's gain was smaller than yesterday's.
It didn't bother me even slightly.
It was fun.
Diving as three was its own, different flavor of fun.
I opened Tritter and, sure enough, there it was on trending.
『#StellarionAndDungeonStrolls』
I opened it with dread: photos of the three of us walking at Toda's entrance, and then—
『'Combine — Torrent of Azure Lightning'』
Someone, apparently, had filmed from far off around Floor 35. My shouted voice, crystal clear.
"Who FILMED that?"
I turned the phone face-down.
Looked out the window.
The sunset paddies stretched on without end.
Tomorrow, solo again.
And the staff — sealed, for a while.