chapter02 · 036-ep36
Episode 36: An On-Air Incident
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
An earsplitting alarm sounded in the heart of Shibuya. The ground around the dungeon entrance had split and partly caved in, spewing mana and monsters.
【No no no no no!】
【This is bad! A dungeon collapse!? You've gotta be kidding!】
【Run, all you spectators! NOW!】
【On a weekend evening in Shibuya, of all places!?】
【And Puke puked up the location so there's a crowd too! This is seriously bad!】
【Worst possible timing...】
【No, not the memories from ten years ago...】
【Even with ojou-sama there, who knows how many will die! Everyone get away, don't stop for your wallets or anything!】
The jokes about Kagerou vanished from chat. But the warnings there, Karin's earlier shout, even the alarm meant nothing on-site. Screams and panic overwhelmed any attempt to evacuate, and the weekend crowds made it worse.
It was no wonder they couldn't stay calm. Dungeon collapses—the worst irregularities since dungeons appeared across the world—had left a legacy of destruction and horrifying memories. For reasons unknown, a dungeon temporarily lost the ability to maintain itself; the mana escaping from it allowed monsters to survive on the surface briefly and attack people. In the early days, when powerful explorers were scarce, entire cities had been destroyed. People still remembered the shocking footage.
Even surrounding a dungeon with defensive walls was useless: the escaping mana broke those down along with the dungeon walls. All anyone could do was prohibit construction nearby to prevent buildings collapsing. Fortunately, collapses were extremely rare, couldn't be caused deliberately, and strong clans and the Self-Defense Forces were ready to deploy immediately. But once one happened, the hordes of monsters inevitably brought tragedy. In a densely populated area, casualties during the response could be enormous even if the disaster was ultimately contained.
"""GRUOOOOOOOOOH!"""
"Y-you've gotta be FUCKING KIDDING ME!?"
Those closest to the dungeon, particularly the vulnerable, would be attacked first. Kagerou, severely wounded and nearly unconscious, was an obvious target. Mere middle-layer monsters rushed at the fallen 'strongest young explorer' with lethal claws.
"I shan't allow it!"
"""G-GUAAAAH!?"""
One strike. Karin stood between Kagerou and the monsters and blew them away in an instant.
"Wh—hey, you!?"
"Quiet! You'll bite your tongue!"
Karin didn't stop. She grabbed the badly injured Kagerou—whose injuries she had caused—and the two guards who had kept calling for evacuation through a loudspeaker rather than flee. With a leap, she carried all three to the roof of a small building at the outer edge of the restricted zone, beyond the immediate reach of the collapse.
Kagerou stared at her.
"Wh... you... Why'd you save me...? I tried to ruin you... I was gonna keep coming after you—"
"What nonsense are you saying!? You're clearly delirious!" Karin cut off his hazy words. "Whatever sort of person you are, I would never abandon someone before my eyes! And that applies to everyone here."
She turned, dress swirling, to face the dungeon on the brink of complete collapse. Lower-layer monsters had begun emerging through the widening cracks. Within thirty seconds, their claws would reach the people struggling to escape around the perimeter. It was one step from hell.
But faced with a sight that would make anyone fear casualties, Karin declared, "No one shall die in front of me! If even one person dies, that would not be 'Elegant'!"
"...!?"
【KARIN OJOU-SAMAAAA!】
【Please do it! We're begging you!】
【But...】
【I know she can kill all the monsters here. But—】
【How can she be everywhere at once!?】
【For zero casualties, Black Tiger and White Knight would ALL need to teleport here right now! Strength isn't the issue; there aren't enough hands!】
【Don't put all this on yourself, ojou-sama!】
【No one will blame you if you can't save everybody like an anime hero!】
Some cheered for their strongest fighter; many feared she was shouldering too much responsibility. But—
"Even I cannot cover all this barehanded."
Karin assessed the situation calmly and quickly.
"My item box... remains unusable from Kagerou-sama's magic item. But judging by the mana, it affects only things I had on me when he activated it. Items taken out afterward should work. The floating camera uses some mana despite being over eighty percent electronics, and it isn't affected. In that case—everyone, today's stream ends here."
Click!
【Huh!?】
【The stream stopped!?】
【Karin ojou-sama ended it!?】
【Did she cut it because she expects people to die?】
Comments crossed the black screen. They were wrong. Karin had disconnected a livestream with almost 400,000 concurrents without hesitation not because she expected deaths, but so she could fight to prevent them. To be safe, she quickly put away the floating camera too.
Then she suddenly thrust a hand into her own mouth.
"This skill isn't the least bit 'Elegant,' so I don't want to use it even with the camera off. But this is no time for such concerns! ...Uegh."
SCHLOOOOOORP!
She dragged two hulking Gatling guns out of her mouth. Heavy magical weapons produced with <Divine Artisan>.
"The inferior item-box skill <Internal Storage> that I picked up without even realizing it! I could NEVER show this on camera, but it does come in handy at times like these!"
She held one impossibly large gun in each hand and gathered mana throughout her body, heedless of elegance.
But she'd forgotten something. Hers wasn't the only camera filming this place. Many viewers had both her channel and Kagerou's open. When her stream ended, most immediately remembered that Puke was still live and switched over. Karin's horrifying weapon extraction continued to be broadcast worldwide without her knowing.
【【Bad News】Karin ojou-sama wasn't human after all】
【WHAAAAAAT!?】
【W-wait, what IS that!?】
【She just pulled giant guns out of her MOUTH!?】
【Weren't her magic items still disabled!?】
【A skill!?】
【Is she an alien!?】
【What even IS an ojou-sama...?】
【That's a full-on on-air incident!?】
【Someone stop the camera!】
【Karin ojou-sama already stopped hers...】
【Kagerou's body cam survived her punch. Today's real MVP】
【She doesn't know Puke's still streaming lol】
【The guns are all slimy lmao】
【Smelly】
【So stinky ♥】
【They can't smell! Karin ojou-sama's bodily fluids smell like flowers!】
【Rafflesia flowers, maybe?】
【Horny stove, ignite! H-hot hot hot! ...Wait, what am I looking at...?】
【Don't come to your senses now】
【Anyway, those guns!? Are they real!?】
【Where'd she steal them from!?】
For an instant, the image was so absurd that chat forgot the collapse. But the next instant brought a greater shock.
"Mana loaded. All targets acquired. Projectile speed sufficient. Now then—DIE, EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU, DESU WAAAAA!"
DAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA!!!!
Both guns opened fire. Yet what poured from their muzzles at extraordinary speed wasn't metal; it was pure mana, dense in every shot. A torrent of projectiles rained down on the monsters below.
"""""GUAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!?"""""
The monsters pouring from the dungeon burst apart. The aberrant hordes racing toward the civilians vanished. So did the lower-layer horrors trying to crawl out: minotaurs, rock turtles, butterfly panthers. Even a large chimera, a lower-layer boss, had its head blown off the moment it surfaced.
【NO NO NO NO NOOOOO!?!?!】
【wait i can't even type】
【What's happening!?】
【Are those mana bullets!?】
【Those aren't even conventional rounds!】
【Magic gear!?】
【She made them with <Divine Artisan>!?】
【THAT POWER!? THAT RATE OF FIRE!?】
【The monsters are bursting like tofu!?】
【Did a large chimera just die the instant its head appeared or was that my imagination...?】
【My hands are shaking too much to type, no joke...】
It wasn't merely destructive. One projectile struck precisely in the back of a monster seconds away from attacking a civilian amid a crowd, killing it without harming anyone nearby. Not once or twice by luck: every shot hit. Places that should have been drenched in human blood and filled with dying screams instead filled with monster corpses.
"ORAAAAAAA! I'll make every last one of you regret coming to the surface, desu waaaaa!"
Her barrage didn't end. Despite pouring out vast amounts of mana, Karin continued gunning down everything emerging across the three-hundred-meter zone.
【WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?!】
【What am I even watching...?】
【I don't understand anything anymore... This is the craziest thing yet...】
【Wait. Wait. Seriously, what...?】
【Is this a movie!? Someone said it was live!?】
【I was watching footage of a dungeon disaster... When'd it turn into an anime...?】
【Did the TV change channels?】
【What the hell's going on!? Karin ojou-sama, WHAT are you!?】
【Um... Are those Gatling rounds HOMING in on monsters...?】
【Why do they have power, rapid fire, AND homing!?】
【Thought she might have item-box-class equipment hidden away, but THIS!? Where's she storing the mana for endless shots!?】
【My side effect's whispering to me... Each shot's packed with enough mana to drain an average explorer dry】
【It DOES look that strong lol】
【Then why isn't Karin-sama exhausted after firing this whole time...?】
【Her name is Karin Yamada. Is that enough of a reason?】
【Everyone's too shocked to remember ojou-sama speech lol】
【Karin ojou-sama's gone thug mode too, so it's fine】
Chat was more bewildered by Karin's fight than it had been when the collapse began. Many were likely too stunned to comment. Kagerou's stream reached an unprecedented 500,000 concurrents, then kept climbing as the internet went wild, even as the flow of comments seemed to slow. As it approached 600,000—
CLACK!
"There! First wave dealt with, desu wa! My perception skill says zero casualties!"
Every monster marauding on the surface was gone. She'd annihilated those trying to emerge, lower-layer threats included. Only once she was sure it was safe did she stop firing.
【SHE DID IT!?】
【Seriously!?】
【She stopped a dungeon collapse ALL ALONE!?】
【ZERO CASUALTIES!?】
【In the middle of a city on a weekend!?】
【She barely even looks tired...?】
【She deserves a national honor for this...】
【You can't do this just because you happened to be there!?】
【Forget 'Elegant'—what even WAS that!?】
【That's the SAME woman people call Fist-Fuck Ojou-sama!?】
Praise flooded chat so fast the screen almost froze; the site's administrators might have suspected a cyberattack. But amid the celebration—
"Th-there'll... probably be a second wave...!" One of the guards, until now stunned by Karin, came to his senses. "Shibuya Dungeon goes all the way to the deep layers...! We need to evacuate everyone while we can—"
Explorers responding to the alarm arrived, exclaiming, "What happened here!?" and "All the monsters are dead!?" They immediately shifted to helping people evacuate.
Then—THOOM!
"!"
"...!? Don't tell me... already!?"
The earth shook harder. From deep underground rose a mass of mana greater than all the monsters so far combined.