arc2 · 049-ch49

Chapter 49: A Meal with Himehana

"Sorry about that. I couldn't help but finish it off."

Himehana had accidentally killed the goblin out of surprise and was apologizing with her hands clasped together. But honestly, I wanted to thank her!

"No, no, I should be thanking you! I just gained experience points! I finally found a way to earn experience!"

That's right—I'd knocked the goblin off balance just now, which made it easy for Himehana to finish off. In other words, even if I can't deal direct damage, as long as I can disrupt a monster's stance to give my ally an advantage, the system counts it as a combat contribution.

However, the experience points I gained were minuscule. Maybe the allocation was small because all I did was throw it off balance? No, that's part of it, but I was also recalling something from my Dungeon Basics class at university.

(Even if you fight in a party, if the level gap is too extreme, the experience you receive drops dramatically. That's why power leveling never became popular.)

"Yeah! That's great, Souta! So, what should I do next?"

Oops—I got so absorbed in thinking that I forgot about Himehana. Still, she's just naturally willing to keep helping me out? That makes me happy!

"Hmm, I'd like you to focus on defense like before. Then, when I knock a monster off balance, could you finish it off afterward?"

I asked Himehana to recreate what we'd just done in order to verify my hypothesis.

"Okay! Leave it to me!"

Every monster on this floor was easy pickings for Himehana. She walked through the cave-like corridors with a light step, finding monsters and buying time for me. It didn't go smoothly at first, but Himehana was good at controlling the monsters' movements, so I gradually got the hang of disrupting their stances.

However, every time I threw a monster off balance, Hayate took damage too. After defeating about twenty monsters, my last Hayate unit finally disappeared. Damn. Without Hayate, I can't talk to Himehana. I wanted to thank her, too.

With no other choice, I flew Asahi in front of Himehana and flashed the light three times. That was the pre-arranged signal for "we're done."

"Oh, are we finished already? Then let's head back!"

Watching the screen showing Himehana's retreating figure, I started getting ready to go out. I'd promised to treat her to lunch as thanks for today.

Having gotten used to multitasking, I piloted Asahi while quickly changing clothes and heading outside with my bag in hand. Just to be safe, I recovered the drone after entering the forest, left it at home, and headed to the café where Himehana was waiting.

▽▽▽

"Thanks for today."

"Huh? Oh—y-you're welcome!"

Did she run here from the dungeon? Her face looked a little flushed.

"Go ahead, order whatever you want. This one's on me."

I said it! I actually said it! All that practice last night paid off! After all, my family's always been broke. I've always wanted to say a line like that.

"Hehe, thanks! Then I won't hold back!"

Himehana responded to my cheesy line with a brilliant smile, called over a waiter, and ordered omurice, orange juice, and a strawberry parfait for dessert. I ordered carbonara and apple juice.

"So, how's the response to the video? With that many views, has anything changed?"

Hyakka Ryouran earned fifty million yen from the Mount Fuji Dungeon stream. I received five million of that, so the actual amount was forty-five million. But apparently, people who saw the Kokushi Musou streams afterward trickled in, earning them an additional hundred million yen or so. I've already received my ten percent of that, though.

"Yeah, the Mount Fuji Dungeon stream completely changed my life. That one pushed my subscriber count past ten million, and now I'm getting tons of interview requests from TV stations and magazines. I've been turning them all down though! Oh, and I've started wearing disguises when I go outside."

"Huh, so you really are super popular."

"But you know, the Tokyo Skyscraper Dungeon stream from the other day has gotten even more insane."

Come to think of it, I'd been so caught up with Hayate that I never checked on Hyakka Ryouran's stream.

"Insane how?"

"Huh? Wait, Souta—you haven't watched it?"

"I've been a little busy so I haven't checked. Let me look now."

I pulled out my phone and opened Hyakka Ryouran's site. Ah, this phone's getting pretty old, and I want to buy one for Umi too—maybe I should go shopping sometime. She'd definitely be thrilled!

With those casual thoughts running through my head, I navigated to the Tokyo Skyscraper Dungeon stream video.

"What the hell!?"

The view count displayed under the thumbnail was an absurd number. A staggering 1.98 billion views. According to Himehana, that made it the fourth most-viewed video of all time. For reference, first through third place were all Kokushi Musou's Yatsugatake Dungeon streams. And I filmed all of them!

"Hey, keep it down! Everyone's looking!"

That was close—Himehana had gone out of her way to wear a disguise. If we drew attention here, she'd get found out. Luckily, the café wasn't crowded, so people just gave us strange looks without recognizing her.

"My bad, my bad. The view count just surprised me a bit."

"About that—it's pretty much guaranteed to hit two billion views, which means a billion yen in revenue. Your twenty percent cut comes out to another two hundred million yen deposited into your account."

Seriously? Another two hundred million on top of everything? My sense of money is completely broken at this point. And she mentioned Kokushi Musou's videos are still climbing too...

"The numbers are so big they've stopped making sense to me."

"Right? We all suddenly became rich, and honestly it's gotten a little scary. Oh, except for Kureha-san."

Come to think of it, Akatsuki-san is from a super wealthy family, isn't she?

"Also, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say you're the real star of this video. If you read the comments, tons of viewers were moved by how you threw yourself in to save me at the end. I mean, I was too, but..."

Hoh—she mumbled that last part so I couldn't quite catch it, but it sounds like my reputation went up too. That's what matters.

"Either way, it feels good to have my work appreciated. I've never really been praised for anything besides games before."

I got a little sentimental, looking back on my life up until now as I spoke.

"Hehe, I always thought you looked cool when you were working hard though! Oh, um, right—the Explorer Association said they want to use this video for research and educational purposes. What should we do?"

Wait, what? I look cool? The Explorer Association? That's way too much information all at once!

"Uh—um—uh, well, if the Hyakka Ryouran members are okay with it, I don't have any objections. Actually, once I sent the video to you guys, it became Hyakka Ryouran's property, so feel free to do whatever you want with it."

That was the deal from the start, so there shouldn't be any issues. Still, the Hyakka Ryouran members all seem pretty serious, so I guess they were just being considerate by asking?

"It's a little embarrassing to think of ourselves as teaching material, but rare monster spawns are such an uncommon phenomenon. Apparently it's important for raising awareness too."

Now that she mentions it, I've never seen videos like that before. There might be fake ones out there, though.

In any case, thanks to Himehana I'd earned money and found a way to level up with summoned drones. I had nothing but gratitude for her.

"Himehana, you've really saved me. Thank you."

I expressed my heartfelt gratitude to the childhood friend who never gave up on me.

For some reason, Himehana hurriedly tried to drink her juice and ended up choking on it. Her face had gone red too. Was she okay?

After that, I finished the meal with Himehana, who had suddenly become quiet, and headed home while thinking about how to level up.