chapter02 · 051-ep45
Episode 45: Golden Week's Final Day Is Study Day
Golden Week, Day Seven. The final day.
The instant I woke, my whole body screamed.
"Ow... owwww...!"
I tried to sit up and went right back down into the futon.
My thighs were no longer mine.
That's what a full day of kicking the air does. Morning to night, nonstop. From Floor 75 to Floor 125 — fifty floors' worth.
Yeah. No wonder.
Inside the futon, I slowly stretched my legs out.
Painful.
Slowly bent them.
Extremely painful.
"Maybe it's a good thing today's a study day..."
For the first time, I was grateful for the line big sis had added to the plan.
The stairs down took five minutes.
Each step, my thighs quivered. Clinging to the railing, one step, then another.
"...Big bro?"
From below, Seina's voice.
The face looking up at me broke into a grin in real time.
"Wait, what IS that walk?!"
"Muscle soreness. Just muscle soreness."
"Ahahaha — you're a newborn fawn!"
"Who're you calling a fawn?"
"Can I take a picture?"
"No!"
She took it anyway.
In the living room, big sis sat at the table drinking barley tea.
One look at my walk, one word:
"125."
"Eh? What about it?"
"Legs. They do that."
How does she know I hit Floor 125? Honestly, this woman.
I never told her. Last night I got home, went straight into the bath, and straight to sleep.
Big sis said nothing more.
Just took a sip of barley tea and smiled — one corner of her mouth only.
Full smug face.
After breakfast, I spread my textbooks across the living room table.
Today was a study day.
The midterm scope hadn't been announced yet. Homeroom had said it would come after Golden Week.
But I could guess, roughly. Whatever April's classes covered. For math, the start of quadratic functions; for English, the first three lessons; for modern lit, the first critical essay.
For starters, I opened the math textbook.
Beside it, my class notes.
High school classes move far faster than middle school. My brain isn't built to get everything in one hearing. So in class I copy the blackboard like my life depends on it, cram the teacher's asides into the margins, and somehow keep from being left behind.
I went back through those notes, from page one.
The start of the quadratics unit. The parts the teacher flagged with "this matters" were circled in red.
Textbook examples, re-solved with the notes beside me. Solve it, move on to practice problems. Get one wrong, compare against the notes to find where, then again.
Pen moving, silently, steadily.
Same as a dungeon. One floor at a time, sure and steady.
About an hour in, Seina took the seat across from me.
Seina had midterms too, apparently. She dropped her textbook and workbooks onto the table with a thud.
"Big bro... you're actually studying..."
"It's a study day."
"I totally thought you'd be reading dungeon books."
"I'm not."
I wasn't. Yet.
Seina glared at her English workbook for a while, but after about ten minutes her pen dropped flat.
"...Big brooo."
"Hm? What's up?"
"I don't get this part."
What she pushed at me was second-year middle school English. Present perfect.
"Ah, this one. Okay, so—"
I took a pen and drew a little diagram in the margin of her notes.
"You use it when something started in the past and it's still true now. So 'I have lived in Nagoya for five years' means you moved five years ago and you're still living there."
"...Huh."
"And this question has 'since,' so you put in the starting point. 'For' takes the length of time. Here, they've swapped since and for."
"Oh."
Seina checked her answer.
"...You're right."
"See?"
"...Big bro, you're actually smart!"
"What do you mean, 'actually'?"
"I mean, I always thought you were the guy who spends class drawing magic circles in his notebook!"
"Rude. I take proper notes and review them, okay?"
"Whaaat. Really? You're diligent!"
Seina stared at me for a while, genuinely impressed.
Then her face suddenly soured.
"...Somehow, being taught by you stings."
"Why?"
"Gross AND smart — that's cheating!"
"The 'gross' was unnecessary!"
"You are gross. Ahahaha!"
In the end, it closed on "gross."
But after that, too, every time she hit something she didn't get, she called "Big brooo."
Just past noon, big sis took the seat across from me.
Next to Seina.
No textbook in hand. Not looking at her phone.
Just sitting, watching me.
"Big sis? What's up?"
"Surveillance."
"Eh?"
"Study day."
That was all she said. Then she drank her barley tea.
I was under surveillance. By an S-rank.
Escape felt impossible.
That said, studying went smoothly. Math was finished through the planned point; English vocab was confirmed.
Rereading the modern-lit essay, there was one paragraph where the author's point just wouldn't come into focus.
"Hmm..."
My hand stopped.
"Hand."
Big sis's voice.
"No — it's not stopped, I'm thinking. This paragraph — I can't tell what it's trying to say."
Big sis leaned over and peered at the textbook.
She read for about three seconds.
"Last sentence of the paragraph before. Ahead of the 'however.'"
"Ahead of the 'however'?"
"This says the opposite of that."
As told, I reread the end of the previous paragraph.
She was right.
The author had laid out the common view in the previous paragraph, and flipped it in this one. Once I saw that, the whole paragraph snapped into focus.
"Ah — got it!"
"Mm."
"Big sis, that's amaz—"
"I know."
Full smug face.
Seina whispered from the side.
"...Big sis was first in her whole grade, you know. In high school."
"Wait, seriously?!"
"Yeah. S-rank AND first in her grade, and now a national university. You didn't know?"
"I didn't. Strong AND smart — isn't that unfair?"
Big sis just drank her barley tea, saying nothing.
The corner of her mouth had lifted again, slightly.
By evening, everything I'd planned was done.
"Doneee!"
I closed the textbook and stretched. My thigh gave a twinge.
"Ow."
Big sis looked at the wall clock.
Then at me.
"Good."
"Eh?"
"Rest of the day. Do as you like."
"So... could I go to a dungeon?"
"Legs."
"Right. Yeah."
Dive on these legs, and I'd probably trip on Floor 1.
In the end, I spent the remaining hours in my room reading the monster encyclopedia. The monsters that appear from Toda's Floor 126 to 150 — the little information the Guild site carries.
Let's call that a continuation of studying.
At night, my phone buzzed.
A talk-app notification.
From Yano.
『Ichinose-kun, what'd you do on Golden Week's last day?』
『Studying. All day.』
『Eh?!』
『That is WAY too unexpected!』
『It was a study day.』
『I assumed you'd be in a dungeon on the last day too.』
『Muscle soreness. Couldn't move.』
『How deep did you GO?!』
A short pause, then one more from Yano.
『Hey, so — sometime.』
『Could you teach me a bit about dungeons?』
Oh?
『Sure, but why?』
『No reason!』
『At karaoke, Ichinose-kun, you talked about them like you were having SO much fun.』
『It just got me a little curious.』
『It's not like I've decided to DO it or anything!』
Looking at the screen, I smiled a little.
『Of course. Ask me anytime.』
『Thanks! See you at school tomorrow!』
I put the phone down and burrowed into the futon.
Lights off, eyes on the ceiling.
School starts tomorrow.
The midterm scope gets announced, Yano will probably start asking about dungeons, and I might see Tono-senpai and Akane-senpai again.
And then — the weekend.
Toda, Floor 150. The C-rank requirement.
From what the encyclopedia showed, past Floor 126 looked harsher than anything so far. Deeper black-water floors with bigger frogs, stronger herons — and something not even listed by name.
Can't wait.
I closed my eyes.
The feel of kicking the air still lingered in my feet.
And the feel of downy white fur, too.
"Wonder if Hati's doing okay."
I murmured it, and laughed a little.
I'd only sent him back yesterday.
Around that time, outside the universe.
In the great hall of the castle, on the King's planet.
A pure-white wolf was making the rounds of the twelve Executives' feet, one by one.
Tail wagging hard enough to fly off.
Chest puffed out, proud.
Looking up into each and every face, barking once at each — wan.
"...So he is boasting, is he not."
"He's boasting."
"He is SO boasting."
"...He's been at this all day, you know."
In a corner of the hall, a golden-coated wolf sat curled up, back turned.
His tail patted the floor — pat, pat — looking awfully sulky about it.