ch41-ch60 · 053-ch45

Chapter 45

The week after Hexaria's first lecture.

Sai and Hexaria were conquering Shinjuku Tower.

Currently on floor eleven.

There were no rubbernecking adventurers around, and the two of them were advancing at a leisurely pace.

Her "don't interfere with me" declaration during the lecture must have done the trick.

No one was sniffing around them — a huge relief for Sai as well.

"Hmm. So Specters appear around here too."

A Specter was a mid-rank Ghost-type monster.

In the other world, it was said that ghosts in areas with dense mana became Specters.

But Hexaria just casually fired holy-attribute magic bullets at said Specters, wiping them out one after another.

Specters were monsters that fired dark-attribute magic bullets and used drain touch to steal life force — but Hexaria suppressed them before they could do anything.

As for Sai, since he'd already conquered up to floor eighteen, all he did was follow behind Hexaria.

"Come to think of it, you."

"Hm? What's up?"

"Right now, there are people watching our adventure on the stream, aren't there."

"Yeah. Right now... there's a crazy number of people watching..."

The number of concurrent viewers was so high he could only be amazed.

His instructional streams also got plenty of viewers, but the numbers here were literally an order of magnitude larger.

He could only be stunned by the viewer count, but Hexaria apparently didn't like it.

"If it's established as a rule, being watched is fine. But I don't like having our conversations overheard."

"Oh, our conversation isn't audible on the stream right now, so don't worry."

"Hoh. Is that so."

"I set it up when we formed the party."

The adventurer streaming site "Tower Tube" was originally designed for safety confirmation and crime prevention.

So in response to complaints like "it's a problem if party conversations leak," there was a setting to turn the adventure sound off — mute it.

If you set it to mute, private conversations wouldn't be heard by viewers, giving peace of mind.

"If they can't hear us, then it's fine."

"Yeah. I only found out recently too, so I set it to mute this time..."

During Sai and Hexaria's first conquest together, both of their voices had been clearly recorded.

There hadn't been any particularly problematic comments, but Hiyori pointed it out, and that's how Sai learned about the mute function.

Not everyone wanted to become famous through streaming.

Some adventurers wanted to operate without letting information leak.

"By the way, just so you know, it's fine for Saria and me, but apparently this has its own issues."

"What issues? Explain in detail."

"Well, we're turning the sound off, right? So when there's a dispute, the credibility of the camera footage goes down. For example, say someone accidentally shoves a monster onto another adventurer while running away."

"I see. If someone falsely claimed you intended to shove the monster onto them from the start, you couldn't prove your innocence."

"Exactly. That's why most parties leave the sound on. They set rules like 'no private talk during party activities.'"

All of this was secondhand from Hiyori, but he was sharing it for everyone's benefit.

Incidentally, when Sai was instructing Hiyori and Mio, they were sometimes talking about sensitive topics, so he apparently set it to mute each time.

No — it was set for him.

When operating in a party, apparently there was a batch control function, and Hiyori and Mio had quietly set it for him.

...An old man who'd lived long in another world found handling smartphone apps too heavy a burden.

In any case, the explanation seemed to have reassured Hexaria.

"Hmm. That's good then."

"Did something happen?"

It wasn't like Hexaria wanted to have private conversations during an adventure.

If so, then she wanted to say something she couldn't say if someone might be eavesdropping.

"Hmm. It's still faint, but we — no, I am being watched."

"Watched... you don't mean the stream. A far sight spell? I can't detect anything..."

"Normal ones would be blocked by security, so it's fine. But it's probably the creator of this Shinjuku Tower, or the dungeon master. It's watching me."

He'd already recognized that Shinjuku Tower had a will of its own for some time.

But he hadn't considered being directly watched.

"From the dungeon master's perspective, Saria's existence is an intruder from another world."

"If it were only for that reason, it would be fine..."

"You're worried?"

"At the moment, the enemies aren't that strong, but this is a dungeon of this scale. The one who built it must be a being of considerable standing."

"The one who built this dungeon — apparently it created this tower in an instant. Maybe it's curious about Saria."

Sai hadn't seen it himself. But in the year 2000, dungeons were said to have appeared all over the world. At almost the same timing, something created a dungeon of this scale.

It was certainly no ordinary being.

"If that's the case, then what kind of person I am may have already been conveyed."

"Tough being a popular High Elf."

"Shut up. I'm tired of Specters. I'm going to pick up the pace a bit."

"Sure thing."

And so, the two of them began conquering at the same high pace as before.

Today they defeated the floor fifteen Mage Chimera and reached floor sixteen, where they decided to end their adventure.

◇

The two finished today's adventure and returned to the Shinjuku Adventurer's Guild.

The guild was as noisy as ever.

When Sai and Hexaria entered, some adventurers noticed her presence and began watching Hexaria from a distance.

Being watched from a distance was unpleasant, but she was used to this kind of attention.

In the Adventurer's Guild in the other world, her treatment was no different.

Feared both in the other world and in Japan — that was Hexaria.

Amid all that, a guild staff member nervously approached Sai and the others.

Probably because of Hexaria's "don't interfere" declaration, the staffer was quite intimidated while speaking.

They looked so frightened it was almost pitiful.

"What can we do for you?"

"U-um... it's about Hexaria-san..."

"You approached as part of your duties, yes?"

"Y-yes ma'am!"

"Then it's fine. State your business."

Despite being misanthropic, she didn't show aversion to people who were sincere about their work.

But the guild staffer couldn't pick up on such subtleties.

As a result, even though they had business with Hexaria, their eyes were fixed on Sai.

They were completely cowed, but still trying to do their job.

"Well... regarding Hexaria-san's adventurer license, we have a matter to discuss about her rank..."

Sai felt sorry for the staffer's intimidated state and decided to help.

"Ah, right. We had to collect a lot of magic stones, didn't we."

"What does this mean?"

"Normally you renew your adventurer license every five floors, and the condition for that requires delivering magic stones."

"Hoh. Delivering magic stones."

Sai himself had been conquering Shinjuku Tower at a fairly fast pace.

When going from F-Rank to E-Rank, he was told he needed five hundred small magic stones, but he delivered those without issue.

But going from E to D, D to C, and so on, the amount of magic stones required kept increasing.

As a result, his magic stone deliveries were steadily falling behind.

"We've been charging up the tower without worrying about collecting magic stones, so..."

Maybe he should spend some time collecting magic stones together with Hexaria.

"No, that's not it..."

Apparently that wasn't it.

"The fool who started blabbing confidently got it wrong. Continue."

Sai covered his face with both hands.

He'd spoken confidently and gotten it wrong — a massive embarrassment. What could he do.

"Well... Hexaria-sama is giving lectures on magic, isn't she..."

"That is my area of expertise."

"S-so, probably, it won't be long before you reach floor twenty and above of Shinjuku Tower, will it...?"

The guild staffer asked nervously.

They looked like a trembling rabbit.

If so, then the High Elf before them was a snake ready to swallow the rabbit whole.

"We'll reach floor twenty in our next conquest or the one after that."

The adventurers in the crowd murmured "Oooh..." at Hexaria's declaration.

Despite the fear from her magic lecture declaration, she was still a beautiful High Elf.

Moreover, judging from the streams, she also looked strong.

There wasn't an adventurer who wouldn't get excited about a woman like that.

"Y-yes! W-well, you see... in light of her achievements in giving lectures on magic to the general public and her conquest of Shinjuku Tower, the Adventurer's Guild has been discussing raising her rank to S-Class..."

Whether because the surrounding people had heard, the adventurers suddenly burst into loud chatter.

"Understood. Handle it as you see fit."

Hexaria gave her permission for the proposal.

Apparently, her rank was going to jump from F straight to S.

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Thank you for reading.