chapter03 · 082-ep82
Episode 79: Extra Stage!
".............Eh?"
Honoka Kamishiro was speechless. The main members of the Metropolitan Police Department's Anti-Dungeon Division were keeping the area around the entrance of Okutama Valley Dungeon under tight guard. They were there to ensure Black Tiger couldn't interfere with Karin Yamada's solo deep-layer stream, and to prevent any other explorers from entering and giving anyone an excuse to claim she hadn't gone alone.
Honoka was still developing as a fighter, but she'd joined them out of a strong wish to do something for Karin. As part of her guard duty, she monitored the stream. Normally watching videos on duty was out of the question, but this was an exception: the closer Karin got to success, the more likely Black Tiger was to move. They needed real-time updates, and the trainee Honoka was chiefly responsible for them.
Moments earlier she'd been celebrating Karin's solo clear with her senior colleagues. Now she could only stare.
"...The abyssal... layers...?"
Karin's outrageous announcement, followed by an image of what looked like the surface world deep inside the dungeon, made her doubt her eyes.
"Wh-what the hell...?"
"A... savior...? ✝"
"So is this where Honoka-chan, another <Divine Artisan> user, will end up someday???"
The Anti-Dungeon Division's senior members peeked at her screen and fell silent too. These were genuine top-class Japanese fighters, well over level 2000, who routinely trained in the deep layers. The same roughnecks who'd wanted the commissioner-general's permission to wage all-out war on Black Tiger, and had laughed at every glimpse of Karin advancing through the deep layers, now stared as if confronted with a real haunted house.
"D-did someone far, far more incredible than I thought save me...?" Honoka murmured.
Of course, the division wasn't alone in its shock.
"Th-that damn brat... How crazy can she get...?" Kagerou muttered with a strained smile, watching on his alt account.
Mitsuki's mind short-circuited between excitement and worry for Karin. The news studio that had cheerfully reported Karin's solo conquest fell into turmoil too: "What? The abyssal layers...?" "Are we allowed to broadcast this?" They acted as though an actual major disaster had struck.
Chat seemed to contain the combined astonishment of all of them. A sixteen-year-old high school girl entering the abyss alone was abnormal enough; the 'ordinary monsters' appearing there were more abnormal still.
【WHAT IS THIS!?】
【Hold on, you've got to be joking!?】
【A clearance sale on high-difficulty deep-layer BOSSES!?】
【My brain can't keep up anymore!? (for the umpteenth time)】
【The abyss is TERRIFYING!?】
【Why are those deep-layer bosses appearing like normal monsters!?】
【Ahahahahaha! lol (all I can do is laugh)】
【Why are so many dangerous monsters on the surface!? Did a dungeon collapse!?】
【Newcomers, listen. Apparently those hills are the abyssal layers. I can't believe it either, but it's true...】
【Too much information! My head's about to boil over!】
【Are we allowed to see this!? Isn't some of it classified!?】
【If it was classified, over ten million people have already seen it...】
【This is so wild the concurrency is skyrocketing!?】
""""""GRUAAAAAAAH!!!""""""
Storm Dragons, Separation Cerberuses and lightning lions—bosses she'd fought in the deep layers—appeared in packs as routinely as goblins or hellhounds in the upper layers. The camera flew high above the battlefield. Even within its field of view, there were well over twenty gigantic monsters. Together with the pleasant, seemingly open-air scenery, it was a sight beyond human comprehension.
Yet the strangest thing there was the ojou-sama charging through this impossible den alone, in a dress.
"HYAAAAAAAAAH!"
These enemies were familiar; Karin didn't need to observe them first. She cloaked herself in wind with <Demonic Dragon Armor: Storm Style>, flew among the monsters at unbelievable speed—and slaughtered them.
""GRUOOOOOOOOH!?""
She crashed into two Storm Dragons while wrapped in wind, neutralized their wind armor, and struck with her pile bunker, killing them in quick succession.
"""—!?"""
Before a Separation Cerberus's three bodies could spread out, she used the wind to accelerate toward them. No need to maneuver them into a line: three lightning-fast strikes from the nimble <Famous Sword Chupacabra-chan> severed all their necks virtually simultaneously.
"""GOAAAAAAAAH!?"""
Karin stowed Chupacabra-chan and drew her enormous hammer, accelerating through the air. Wind speed, gravity and her own arm strength sent the hammer hurtling onto a lightning lion's head like a meteor and pulverized it in one hit. She crushed lion after lion with those purely physical blows.
"GIGOGOGOGOGOH!"
Even what had looked like a mountain rumbled in response to her rampage. A <Gigant Fortress> appeared and opened fire on her.
"Well, this is floor 1, so I suppose it's only natural to see yet another familiar face! <Demonic Dragon Armor: Lightning Style>! Time for a little hammering, desu wa!"
"GIGOOOOOOH!?"
Karin already knew how to fight it. She dodged every shell as a matter of course with Storm Style's mobility, then closed in and battered the colossal hermit crab with electrified blows from Lightning Style and her hammer. She didn't pause for a moment against the oncoming swarms of deep-layer-boss-class monsters.
【AAAAAAAAAAAAH!?!?!?】
【She's already rampaging in the abyss before I can even worry about her!?】
【Even knowing their weaknesses, this is too one-sided!?】
【Forget the gear. What level IS this ojou-sama!?】
【Nothing about this makes any sense lol】
【This ojou-sama's always turning everything upside down...】
【What is this, an all-out kaiju war? lol】
【This has to be fake... Please tell me it's fake (begging)】
【Even if we pretend her mowing down deep-layer bosses is fine (it isn't), how is she fighting at this output without getting winded or running out of mana!?】
【Her only food on the way was cheap ¥100 yokan from her item box. This stamina's beyond jokes】
【Is her energy efficiency that of a nuclear reactor!?】
【Other countries aren't going to ignore someone this strong!?】
【People of the world, please believe us: Japan IS a dungeon developing nation! This ojou-sama is a mutation! Really!】
【Mutant ojou-sama!】
【BLACK TIGER! YOU STEPPED ON ONE HELL OF A TIGER'S TAIL!?】
【Black Tiger? More like they stomped all over a white tiger's tail!】
【Because of that stupid clan, the entire world's now watching a live broadcast revealing this monster lives in Japan!?】
【This is way beyond her almost founding a <Divine Artisan> clan!?】
【Tiger, take responsibility!!】
【Apologize! Apologize sincerely to the Dungeon Bureau and government officials whose lives are about to become hell!】
【#BlackTigerGetOnYourKneesAndCutYourBelliesOpen】
【#BlackTigerBecomeTheSacrificeToAppeaseKarinOjouSama】
【Black Tiger, we'll make every last one of you answer for this!】
【Seal the airports so they can't flee the country!】
【Put the coast guard on high alert too! (ꐦ°᷄д°᷅)】
【Don't let them escape!】
【We swallowed our anger and looked the other way because destroying a top clan carried so many risks and we lacked hard evidence!】
【I might not get home for a month, desu wa! (dead-eyed)】
【And thus began what would later be called 'Kasumigaseki's Longest Month'... (coughs blood)】
【Lots of people who sound like government workers are screaming lol】
【Well, if the power of a nuclear-bomb ojou-sama suddenly gets revealed on a weekend, civil servants are going to tear their hair out...】
【Surely actual government people wouldn't post this stuff... Then again, Karin ojou-sama is so crazy I can't tell what's a joke anymore!】
【A tremendous amount of hate is aimed at Black Tiger... Five hundred billion units of it!】
【All the anger's going straight at Black Tiger lol】
【Of course it is (since they're why this insane stream is happening)】
【Karin ojou-sama's just putting herself on the line to reduce the chance of operatives and antis attacking her friends to almost zero...】
【The scale of her risk-taking is so nuts it's an international incident】
【This stream has become an even bigger bomb than the aborted <Divine Artisan> clan lol】
【At this point I almost feel safer... (in the nuclear-deterrent sense)】
【(Aren't the allegations beyond dead, and Black Tiger completely finished?????)】
【The whole world's a mess now】
【It's such a mess I can't even tell how bad this stream is anymore...】
【The entire internet's in chaos lmao】
"Phew! That's all the monsters around here cleared out for now! Let's head onward, desu no!"
Not one deep-layer boss monster remained. Karin walked cheerfully away from the corpse-strewn battlefield. Naturally, killing dozens of monsters left a great many drops.
<Storm Dragon Horn>, <Separation Cerberus Heart>, <Lightning Lion Electro-Control Core>, <Fortress Hermit Crab Reactor (provisional name)>—rare materials scattered everywhere, many of which hadn't dropped in the earlier deep-layer boss fights, perhaps due to bad luck. It was a treasure trove worth an unimaginable sum. Karin, of course, walked straight past it, wondering aloud if she'd find any new monsters.
【NOOOOO! She's ignoring those treasures like trash!?】
【Um... Naturally, this means...】
¥5,000
As I said in the deep layers, Karin ojou-sama is a minor and cannot take drops home.
【YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!?】
【The account estimating Black Tiger's lost intel value is now calculating how much the country loses because Karin ojou-sama can't bring the materials out lmao】
【Even an expert couldn't easily price abyssal—well, deep-layer boss materials, so it's not exact... but supposedly we're already well over ¥30 billion】
【Eek...】
【I didn't hear anything, desu wa!】
【The fortress monster's materials are so unknown the real number could be higher...】
【With her item box, the ojou-sama really could easily bring home ¥30 billion in materials if she wanted, even the giant ones】
【If she collected abyssal drops every weekend, wouldn't her yearly income rival a small national budget...?】
【The people who banned minors from taking ANY materials out aren't breathing!?】
【Dungeon Bureau higher-ups and politicians should be committing seppuku!?】
【It's a bit much to expect them to plan for a minor who's basically a yokai...】
【Actually, maybe banning it was a blessing in disguise...?】
【A flood of this stuff would destroy Japan's dungeon-materials market!】
Now every element on screen caused an uproar. Comments in various languages asking if the unprecedented abyssal-layer stream was fake appeared more and more often, adding to the chaos. Viewers flooded in as the concurrency climbed toward an unprecedented fifteen million.
"Oh, there it is."
Karin, who had swept through the deep-layer-boss-class monsters, spotted an old metal door beneath a giant tree's roots, almost blending into the landscape.
【Eh?】
【Don't tell me】
【Isn't it too soon!?】
"The floor 1 boss room of the abyssal layers! As I said, this abyssal conquest is only a little preview. I'd like to be home before sundown, so I'm glad I can reach a good stopping point so quickly."
【It really IS the boss room!?】
【How did she find it so fast!?】
【Even with this place looking like outdoors, the abyssal layers still have boss rooms...】
【I thought a stream this dangerous would get banned instantly, but she's reached the worst part before they could cut it off】
【The abyss is so big it looks like the outdoors and there's no corridor to follow. Normally finding a boss room would take ages, right...?】
【How can the ojou-sama walk straight to it like that!?】
【Her detection skills are too sharp...!?】
【Wait... Is she actually going inside...?】
【O-ojou-sama!? Are you serious!?】
【This ojou-sama's always serious...】
【Don't do it!】
【All right! We believe you're innocent! We'll have the whole country destroy Black Tiger, so please just calm down! Okay!?】
【I think she'll probably be fine, but my heart can't take this!?】
"Heehee. Thank you all for livening up the stream with your usual enthusiastic internet reactions, desu no! To answer your support, I'll challenge the first boss of the abyssal layers! ...Still, the concurrency is even more absurd than I expected. What IS that number...? W-well, growth is good."
Apparently even deep-layer conquests weren't normally streamed, let alone abyssal ones. Maybe that explained it.
(As Dungeon Alive shows, there must be plenty of people more incredible than I who simply don't draw attention by streaming. It feels a little awkward being the only one to receive this much attention...)
Karin was privately alarmed by the figures, but she opened the door without hesitation, determined to erase the allegations completely.
"...!? WAAAAAAAAAH! There it is, desu waaaaa!"
Her scream rang across the stream.
【!?】
【Eh, what!?】
【Has Karin ojou-sama been born again!? (for the umpteenth time)】
【Wait, did something hit her!?】
【I don't see anything unusual... Was she hit by an attack we can't even perceive!?】
【Please, not a fatal accident on stream at this point!?】
【Karin ojou-sama, are you all right!?】
【What happened!?】
"What happened? Why, it's—oh, of course! I haven't told you viewers the details!"
Chat feared she'd suffered an incomprehensible attack. Instead, Karin excitedly pointed toward the back of the boss room.
"Remember when I told you I couldn't find the monster that provides the materials for my item box? That's it! Look, look!"
【Eh】
【Eh】
【Huh?】
【Wait】
Where she pointed, something 'big and hazy' floated in midair. It was unusual even among monsters: a rare boss without a fixed spawning location that appeared at an exceedingly low random rate in boss rooms from the abyssal layers onward. It still didn't even have an official name.
"Such incredible luck at the very end! This will get the stream going and clear my name for good, desu no!"
"OOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAH!"
Karin faced the creature head-on, thrilled by the perfect footage opportunity at the very end. Its eerie roar filled the room. The viewers, no longer sure where to begin questioning anything, froze again.