ch361-ch380 · 363-ch363
Chapter 363: Katsudon, Please
"And then they took a hostage, and Aikawa got hurt, and......"
'Such a thing happened? Hm-hm? Aikawa-san was there too?'
That night, Kasumi-san's call came past ten.
She'd been busy, hadn't seen the news, and didn't even know we'd caught the foreigners.
The big problem was the 'new Dungeon Gate' that appeared at the airport—not inside a building or on the runway, but on airport grounds, which means in principle no weapons can be brought in.
In other words, no easy survey.
Building a structure around the 'Dungeon Gate' requires all sorts of permits, so it hasn't gone by the manual and they've been struggling, apparently.
For a while it will be left as is, watched over and guarded by human eyes.
"Yes, well."
Kasumi-san seemed tired, so I kept the explanation short.
Soushi and I happened to be passing by, a classmate called for help, and we entered the 'new Dungeon Gate.'
Then I told her we took down the culprits, but Aikawa got hurt.
'Is Aikawa-san's injury all right?'
"Shiraishi-san came and treated her. She seemed fine and full of energy afterward, so she's all right. It's what came after that was rough—the police and the Association HQ people showed up, argued over where the questioning would happen, and left us standing outside. And that dungeon had rain falling in it, you know? We were soaked through."
'Mmm-mmm-mmm, unforgivable. If an examinee catches a cold, that's serious. Please keep warm and sleep well tonight. But rain—what a rare dungeon. Speaking of cold, we have nothing to break the wind here either......'
Kasumi-san has to go to Narita again tomorrow, so we cut the nightly call short.
Incidentally, Floor 1 of the Narita dungeon is a grassland field, and the monsters that appeared were dog-like things.
Just Floor 1, and it's an ordinary dungeon.
Weapons can't be brought in, and it shouldn't be enterable yet—but the moment attention lapsed, the newbie went in and had a look on her own.
From tomorrow she'll be made to stay behind at the branch, apparently.
With them short-handed, no less.
It wasn't a matter of 'I got baaarked at, ssu—'—that's what Kasumi-san grumbled.
︙
"So why were you there? First shrine visit? Don't be absurd. There's no shrine anywhere near there."
This is an interrogation room—no, the Chiba branch's small meeting room.
In the cramped meeting room: two police officers, the branch manager, a staffer who seems to have come from HQ, and me.
Across the desk, facing me, sits one of the officers; along the side wall, the other takes the record.
On the opposite wall sit the branch manager and the HQ man, occasionally cutting in.
"Th-there was a community cleanup."
"Starting on New Year's Day? Well, I hear the others gave much the same line."
So those guys are telling that lie too...... unforgivable.
There's apparently an agreement not to approach Mizuki's house, but they'd gathered hoping for one glimpse of her on her way out for the first shrine visit of the year.
They were calling it something like a "First-Goddess visit."
Given the chance, they meant to get her furisode figure into a photograph—then the suspicious foreigners appeared and they gave chase, apparently.
It violated the agreement, but under the emergency exemption they closed in on Mizuki's house—and the suspects turned out to be real, hence the shock.
Well, if those guys hadn't been there, we might have taken things slower and watched how it developed, so I'll chalk it up as a good deed.
They did find the driver and the car, after all.
"Isn't why he was there beside the point? He's hardly a culprit. Or is the police suspicious of him in some way?"
The HQ man cuts in.
An ally, maybe?
He's like a lawyer, honestly.
Maybe I'll have katsudon for lunch?
"This was a question for everyone present, so—formally speaking, that is. Let's move on. ......You knew the man outside the dungeon had a gun, yes? You charged in knowing that?"
"That one's not me—that's Soushi...... please direct that at the other guy. He said he was going in, so all I could do was follow."
Soushi was cool.
I'm glad it worked out for him.
"The other boy—Natsukawa Soushi, was it? He isn't here today, I recall."
"Right. Yesterday he got drenched in the dungeon and then left standing outside by the police, so he seems to have caught a cold."
Ah—was it okay that I told them it was raining in that dungeon?
Well, it's the police, so......
"That is a problem. We will be filing a formal protest later."
That was the Association person who forbade the patrol car, though.
That person isn't here today.
"I haven't heard that part......"
"The officers at the scene tried to take the two of them to the station, and were held back, apparently."
Supporting fire from the branch manager, too.
Though the cold might be the branch manager's lecture's fault, honestly.
"We sincerely apologize for that. We will confirm and apologize again, formally...... Now, you pushed that man into the dungeon as well, yes? Afterward, how did you subdue the men? There were four of them, I believe?"
"By the time we entered there were three. Aikawa had already downed one."
"Hm. Three, then. And how did you take those three down?"
He knows it was three and is just confirming, isn't he.
He talked with the police at the scene yesterday, after all.
"We grappled our way in, and I couldn't manage any fine control, so I crushed their hands and feet just like that. Gusha. Once I'd downed one that way, one of the men inside aimed a gun at me, so I grabbed his hand, pulled, and—crack. Then crack, crack, so he couldn't move. That made two, and......"
"Wait, wait—I can't follow this. From those gestures, you gave a light squeeze or a stomp, nothing more. Do bones break that easily? And what even is 'gusha'?"
It can be done, you see.
Terrifying, isn't it.
"Um, those two probably weren't adventurers, so...... with a level gap, bones break easily. The 'gusha' happened because I'd been clenching with everything I had before we entered—so the moment the Status correction kicked in, I gripped at full power...... and it went gusha."
"So that's how it works? ...Is that right?"
The policeman confirms it with the branch manager and the others.
"That is how it works."
The branch manager affirms it.
"I—is that so. It does match the records. The worst-injured man's compound fracture...... You didn't use some special skill of yours for this?"
Is this man not that well-versed in dungeons?
He seems to have done his homework, though......
Why did they make him the officer in charge?
Well, it is a serious case.
Maybe he's actually someone important.
"I just gripped normally."
"Urgh...... There was one more, no. How did you take him down?"
When I mimed the grip, he edged back a little.
"He dodged Soushi's attack with the evasion skill, so I kicked him right there. BOOM."
"'BOOM,' he says...... Isn't the evasion skill supposed to let you dodge anything?"
"That's WHY I kicked where he dodged. BOOM, there. And evasion skills aren't absolute. There are sure-hit-type skills, and if the evasion skill you used is slow, it gets caught and you take the hit."
Call it skill precision, maybe?
【Aiming】 chases you even after a dodge, so unless you get clear of the attack's range, you can't escape it.
If it catches you before you're out of range, naturally you're hit.
So it comes down to which skill is faster—that is, more precise.
The 'Blue Shadow skeleton''s evasion skill was teleport-grade, you know.
Gone in a blink, back in a blink.
A true ninja.
I managed because I knew in advance where it would appear.
"And what even is 'BOOM.' Anyway—then what? You took the three of them down together, didn't you?"
"No, that was the end of it? Soushi and I took two of them down. Well, they were attacking Aikawa, so call it three-on-one if you like."
They had four, so three-on-four, really?
"Wha—...... One strike?"
"Yes. They weren't all that strong, so it was one strike."
If anything, I botched the restraint and nearly overkilled.
"Huh?"
"Hm?"
"Ha?"
Oh?
What?
Everyone but the note-taker reacted.
The branch manager and the HQ man too......
Is something the matter?