arc1 · 017-ep17

Episode 17: The Ojou-sama Watches the Archive★

"――Good day to you all! Thank you so much for gathering on such short notice for today's special stream!"

That night. In the streaming room of her own home, Tsukishiro Saya rang a voice even more fired-up than usual into the microphone.

Today's stream layout differed a little from usual. In a small wipe frame at the bottom right of the screen appeared Saya herself, long black hair arranged in a half-updo and a magician's robe draped over her shoulders, while a large video player window stood ready at the screen's center.

The stream's title: 『A Stream for Watching Onee-sama's Dungeon Full-Clear Archive』.

In the comment feed, where nearly twenty thousand viewers had already gathered, all manner of text had been flying back and forth since the very start.

『Been waiting for you, nouveau-riche-chan!』

『Missed Onee-sama soloing the lower-layer boss today because of work, so this is a lifesaver』

『Wait, is she really allowed to just rebroadcast someone else's archive on her own stream without getting in trouble?』

『Ojou-sama, isn't today's ribbon a size bigger than usual?』

『Three full laps through Onee-sama's archive already, but commentary included means one more watch』

Catching the comment asking "is she really allowed to just rebroadcast it?" scrolling past her monitor, Saya lifted her chin as if she had been waiting for exactly that and puffed her chest out proudly.

"A splendid question, that! Who do you take me for? I would never commit so tasteless an act as borrowing, without permission, the archive of the Onee-sama who saved my very life!"

Working the mouse at hand, Saya brought up a single image file in front of the video player.

"Just as I promised on the recent stream, I sent a direct message to the channel of the Onee-sama we ID'd. Having conveyed my thanks for the rescue in the middle layers, I received the Onee-sama's own proper consent—both for today's archive viewing and for showing you all this message screen as proof of that permission!"

As Saya declared it so proudly, a screenshot of the direct messages appeared at the screen's center.

Occupying the top half of the image was what looked to be Saya's own message—a wall of text so long the screen went pitch-black with characters.

It opened with burning gratitude for the rescue the other day, poured out unstinting praise upon today's solo full-clear of the dungeon, and at the very end spelled out an invitation burning far too hot: 『Therefore, might I meet with you directly just once, to offer my thanks in person and hear about that magnificent magic of yours! I shall book out an entire three-star restaurant! Do name whatever day and time suits you, Onee-sama—whenever you please!』

And beneath that grand wall of text, the channel owner's reply sat primly lined up—a mere two lines long.

――『Thank you for writing so considerately. No thanks are necessary, and you're welcome to watch the recording or share this screen. Only, I'll pass on the meal—it would cut into my dungeon time.』

After a few seconds of stillness, the comment feed kicked into high gear all at once.

『S-So short!!』

『A screen-filling wall of text just got cleaved down in two lines lmaooo』

『"I'll pass on the meal—it would cut into my dungeon time" is killing me』

『Nouveau-riche-chan, didn't you just get flatly turned down? lol』

『Also why is this person's icon still the default silhouette?』

『A free meal at a three-star restaurant? I'd absolutely go. Isn't this person way too much of an oddball?』

"Wha—!? I-I was not turned down at all!!"

Under that storm of merciless roasting, the Saya in the wipe frame went red to the very tips of her ears at speed, voice pitching high.

But she promptly clenched both fists tight and turned her gaze back upon those two lines on the screen, eyes misty and burning.

"D-Do you see it!? Even when I offered to arrange a three-star restaurant, the Onee-sama replied, 『It would cut into my dungeon time』! Not one sidelong glance for gourmet dining or high society, wishing only to dive the dungeon that much longer, one minute and one second at a time—what a stoic and solitary soul this person is...!"

『The positive interpretation is breaking its limits lmao』

『Well, if she's happy, all's well!』

『Just play the video already, I'm gonna miss my bath window lol』

『Stay strong out there, nouveau-riche-chan......』

"H-How noisy! Now that the Onee-sama's noble character has been made plain to everyone, let us begin the main archive at once, from the very top! I myself had engagements from this morning, so all I have heard is the account that the Onee-sama full-cleared the deepest part solo. The actual archive footage, I shall be watching for the very first time, together with all of you!"

With a staged little cough, Saya closed the image and clicked the video player's play button.

At the screen's center appeared first-person footage from this morning: Onee-sama—Fukazumi Iori—shouldering the big rucksack, entering the dungeon, and striding down the upper-layer passages at an unhesitating clip.

Two Fang Boars bursting from a side tunnel were blown clean away by nothing more than a half-step of body movement and the wind at the right hand, sword never drawn, and Iori passed straight through, reaching the middle layers in barely fifteen minutes. The three middle-layer Black Hounds, too, got only the floor beneath their feet frozen thin to tumble them down, and were slipped past without a single pause in that stride.

And entering the latter half of the middle layers, against the two Heavy Shells blocking the narrow passage shoulder to shoulder at its very center, Iori stepped straight in, drawing the one-handed sword at the hip. The instant the pair tipped into a forward-leaning posture, the flagstones underfoot froze mirror-slick and the great bodies skidded nose-first—and into that opening, into the right-hand one slid the point of the one-handed sword, into the left-hand one a wind blade, both at once—and in barely a dozen seconds, both Heavy Shells were scattered to mist.

On screen, Iori, battle finished, stopped at the wall, took the canteen from beside the rucksack, drank, and let a small "...phew" of breath escape.

『Watched this live—still laugh at how fast the walking is』

『On the day-before-yesterday's stream it was all sword, but today the magic's out in the open from the journey on』

『Nah, the footsteps and mic distortion are so bad the incantations just get drowned out—plainly murmuring shortened incantations like normal』

『Isn't there a magic-tool ring hidden on the left hand or somewhere? Chantless casting doesn't exist』

『Also from start to here, the map hasn't been opened once, right?』

Eyes falling on the words "just shortened incantations drowned out by distortion" and "magic tool, maybe?" drifting through the comment feed, Saya went "One moment, if you please," and paused the video.

"To those of you just now saying 'the spells are only inaudible because of mic distortion' or 'isn't this a magic tool'—listen once more, and closely, to the moment right after these two Heavy Shells fall, if you please!"

Rewinding the video a touch and playing it, out of the speakers came the small breath Iori let slip—"...phew"—right after capping the canteen following the two Heavy Shells' fall, and the murmured voice—"...huh?"—as the terminal came out of its hip holder.

"Do you hear it!? Even through a beat-up camera's mic, that small breath—'...phew'—from stopping to drink some water comes through this clearly! If, mere seconds before, the Onee-sama had been firing shortened ice-and-wind incantations while running, even a veteran magician would necessarily be winded—and it would be utterly impossible for not one word of spell-chanting to reach a mic sensitive enough to catch a breath! And to those saying magic tool—look at the Heavy Shell fight immediately before, if you please! A magic-tool ring or scroll does one thing: it fires out a fixed, pre-loaded shape of magic straight ahead. But the Onee-sama watches what angle the ice-skidded left Heavy Shell's leg will open at, and only then matches the wind blade's trajectory to slip into that narrow joint gap before firing! What is more, from the previous chamber all the way here, not one step has stopped—and the instant enemies came into view, the sword was drawn mid-stride—there is not even time to pre-cast and stockpile spells in the passage's shadow! ...In other words, this is not audio clipping, not a magic tool, not pre-casting—the Onee-sama is using true chantless casting, weaving magic on the spot without speaking a single syllable of incantation!?"

When Saya pointed at the screen and declared it, the mood of the comment feed turned to a murmur.

『......Ah, come to think of it, that voice at the water break isn't winded at all』

『Eh, so this is the real-deal storybook chantless casting......?』

『On the rescue the day before yesterday people said it might've been pre-cast since it came from deep in the passage, but there's no explaining this one away』

『Drawing while running, then firing ice and wind separately with zero chanting—how is any of that possible......』

『But then on the day-before-yesterday's stream, against the Rock Lizards and the ogre, why no magic?』

"On that stream the day before yesterday, it looked like sword alone—but having seen today's movement and thinking back, even against the Rock Lizards and the ogre, the gap was closed at a first-step speed no ordinary swordsman could manage, and when the Heavy Shell slammed in, the deflection was unnatural as well. In all likelihood, that day too, winds of magic too small for the camera to catch were assisting movement and blade!"

Perhaps her own explanation had set her heart racing, for Saya caught herself speeding up mid-sentence, coughed sharply, and restarted the video.

On screen played the scene of Iori—having noticed the viewer count—typing just two lines into text chat, 『Freeze the ground before you move in and they can't move』『A shallow slash goes through a joint gap』, and the comment feed broke into laughter: 『Don't sum up the god-tier feat of icing the ground while twisting sword and wind blade in simultaneously with chantless casting as "a shallow slash goes through" lmaooo』『Onee-sama is the type of person who should not be giving beginners advice, I swear』.

But then, immediately after that—

The footage advanced to the junction hall before the stairway down to the lower layer, and there played the scene of a three-woman party arriving by the other route, ambushed by a Rock Ogre.

Beside the vanguard woman about to be knocked flying, shield and all, under the ogre's mighty arm, Iori came sliding out from behind a stone pillar, wrapped a left arm around her slender waist, and hauled her back behind; letting go and stepping forward in the same motion, the left hand's wind batted away the ogre's follow-up.

Then, felling it with a single sweep of the one-handed sword, Iori plopped the fallen longsword and the Rock Ogre's big fresh-dropped magic stone right onto the woman's palm, raised one hand in silence, and made off down the stairway.

And the expression of the Saya in the wipe frame, who had been watching the whole sequence, froze solid with a crack.

"..........Wh—"

Clutching her robe's cuffs tight in both hands, Saya pointed at the trio on screen, their faces flushing red, and her voice trembled.

"W-Wait just one moment!? Why is that person pulling the girl in by the waist with the left arm!? And even handing over the downed Rock Ogre's magic stone directly into her hand......! When I was rescued, all I got, collapsed before that rubble, was 『Can you drink the potion yourself?』—no pulling me close like that, no magic stone placed in my hand, noooothiiing!!"

『Ojou-sama, that's not magic analysis, that's plain jealousy lmaooo』

『So you wanted to be pulled in too, huh!?』

『But ojou-sama, back in your case she did leave you the five Black Hounds' worth of magic stones, no? lol』

『Dropping them on the floor and handing them over are COMPLETELY different things! (speaking for her)』

Amid the comment feed's roar of laughter and Saya's red-faced protest, the instant the Iori on screen descended the long stone steps and set foot into the 『lower layer』 of pale haze and spreading groundwater, Saya herself sucked in a sharp breath and straightened her posture.

Two Aqua Bites bursting from the water's bottom were slammed flat into the bed by wind pressure straight from above, and deeper in—down the collapsed stone bridge's deep vertical shaft, one second of hesitation nowhere to be found—five Blood Bats surging up from below were batted out of the air on waves of wind even as the landing came featherlight.

And then the screen showed it: at the final section's corner, where even five meters ahead drowned in darkness, ice and wind fired into the black before any enemy touched the camera—and rounding the bend, three Shadow Spider magic stones already lay rolling on the ground.

"......These footsteps do not belong to someone setting foot in the lower layer for the first time today."

The Saya in the wipe frame hushed her earlier liveliness, watching the screen with a serious face.

"The poison-mist traps' positions, the vertical-shaft shortcut, where monsters gather on the ceiling at the corners—all of it, known from the very start...... Long before we ever found that stream, the Onee-sama has been diving, seen by no soul, alone to this lower layer's innermost depths, again and again."

And at last, the Iori on screen passed out of the final section, and stopped before the giant double stone doors tall enough to reach the ceiling—the deepest part, the lower-layer boss's room.

Eyes fixed on the great doors grinding open with heavy sound, Saya swallowed with an audible gulp and squeezed her right hand hard around the mouse.