arc1 · 007-ch7

Episode 7: Group Battle

The battle between Hyakka Ryouran and the goblin group looked like it'd be a spectacle. They were outnumbered, and the enemy had a goblin archer. Let me see how they fight against an opponent with ranged attacks.

I used the drone's telephoto lens to zoom in on the goblin archer. As expected, it had its bow drawn and loosed an arrow as if aiming for a preemptive strike. The target was Akatsuki-san, who was at the very back. That cheeky goblin—turns out it had the intelligence to target the backline.

"Not on my watch!"

The arrow came flying at considerable speed, but Toomi-san skillfully swatted it down with her spear. Being able to knock an arrow out of the air at that timing—Rank D explorers were more impressive than I thought.

They'd deflected the opening shot, but the situation wasn't going to change at this rate. Just as I was wondering what they'd do, Hanazono charged into the group of goblins with a flashy move.

"I'll be your opponent! Come and get me!"

I thought diving into four goblins was reckless, but what appeared on my screen was my childhood friend dancing through their attacks, wielding her twin swords as she weaved between their strikes.

"Hanazono's nickname is 'Dancing Princess,' huh. I figured it was just taken from her name, but so that's what it meant."

I was so captivated by the elegant movements that I got a little distracted. But I needed to stay focused on the job. I aimed the 360-degree camera at Kurokage-san, who appeared in the feed. While Hanazono was drawing all the attention with her flashy assault, Kurokage-san was closing in on the goblin archer. As expected of someone with the Thief Job—she crept in silently, and none of the goblins noticed her approaching.

When Kurokage-san got behind the goblin archer, I zoomed in on her face. Her sharp, intense gaze—so different from her usual deadpan way of speaking—made her look like a hunter stalking her prey.

With a strike so sharp you could almost hear the "shhk," her dagger sliced through the goblin archer's throat.

The archer collapsed with a heavy thud, and by then, Kurokage-san was already gone from the spot. Flawless movement with zero waste. I was thoroughly satisfied that I'd captured her performance perfectly on camera.

With the archer suddenly downed, confusion spread among the other goblins. And with the ranged threat gone, Akatsuki-san began chanting as if she'd been waiting for exactly this moment.

The goblins panicked at the sight. But even if they wanted to stop Akatsuki-san's casting, Hanazono was handling four of them single-handedly, and Toomi-san was guarding Akatsuki-san, making it impossible to get close. On top of that, Kurokage-san joined the fray, and the goblins' escape routes were rapidly closing off.

"Firing! Fireball!"

While all that was happening, Akatsuki-san finished her chant and launched a fireball straight at the goblins. The shot of Akatsuki-san's face taken through the fireball—wavering and shimmering in the heat—looked incredibly dreamlike.

In sync with Akatsuki-san's fireball, the members of Hyakka Ryouran scattered in all directions. Incredible teamwork. The fireball struck the remaining goblins.

One goblin took a direct hit and had its head blown clean off. The other three appeared to suffer burns on their arms, legs, and backs.

After that, Hanazono, Toomi-san, and Kurokage-san each finished off one of the wounded goblins, bringing the goblin group to a splendid defeat. On my end, I managed to capture all four of their performances without missing a beat—totally satisfied.

"We did it!"

Hanazono ran over happily and high-fived the other three. Of course, I made sure to get a nice close-up of that too. After all, this party is full of beauties—I never run out of things to film.

I also managed to capture moments like the members grimacing as they pulled out magic stones, and Kurokage-san playfully tossing a goblin ear at Akatsuki-san, making her fall on her butt.

Could these be precious scenes, perhaps? By capturing moments like these without missing a beat, I wanted to create a clear gap between myself and AI drones.

With that, the members of Hyakka Ryouran finished collecting the goblin magic stones and decided to take a break here. They'd found stairs leading down to the sixth floor, so they made their way partway down and sat down.

"Alright, let's have lunch."

At Toomi-san's call, everyone started pulling lunch from their bags. As expected in a dungeon where you're constantly moving vigorously, everyone had brought onigiri or sandwiches.

Four beautiful women nibbling onigiri and sandwiches with their small mouths. This was going to make for some great footage. Trying not to make them too wary, I moved the drone a bit further away and used the telephoto lens to capture the women during their meal.

Ah man, now I'm getting hungry too. Guess it's lunch for me as well. I poured hot water into a cup of instant ramen I'd stockpiled as emergency food a long time ago and waited three minutes. Of course, I kept filming the whole time. But man, creatures called "beautiful women" are something else. They look radiant just from eating a meal.

The explorers I used to look up to... no, to be honest, the ones I still look up to, were appearing on the screens in front of me. Unlike watching streamed videos, maybe because I was filming them myself, it felt strangely real—and I ended up with a complicated feeling in my chest.

(If I could, I'd rather enter dungeons as an explorer, not a cameraman.)

Watching the members of Hyakka Ryouran head toward the sixth floor after finishing lunch, I felt a little lonely.