chapter01 · 004-ep4

Episode 4: "The Night the Strategy Wiki Was Rewritten"

At one in the morning, a thread went up on the explorer board of an anonymous message board.

"[Verification] Is Shin-san's Beginner Course the Real Deal? The Thread Where the Strategy Crowd Seriously Checks"

【1: It's the course that clip traces back to. People are dismissing it as "just dull," but something's bugging me. Watched all seven archives, start to finish. I'll verify the questionable statements one by one】

【4: You have way too much free time】

【7: >>1 I watched it too. It's the lesson three thing, right? "Third layer, Grand Corridor: don't walk along the walls." That's the exact opposite of the wiki's established doctrine】

【9: Huh? Grand Corridor is wall-side, no other option. "You'll get surrounded in the center"—that's been the word for twenty years】

【12: The course's claim is this: "The Grand Corridor's monsters lurk where the ceiling meets the walls. Hugging the wall means volunteering to walk right under them. Closer to the center, whichever side they leap from, you can slip them by half a step."】

【15: The logic tracks. But it'll take more than that to overturn twenty years of established doctrine】

【23: Cross-checked against the Association's public accident database. Of the 186 fatal and serious-injury incidents in the third-layer Grand Corridor over the past ten years, 152 have records of where they occurred—and 129 of those were at the walls】

【24: What?】

【25: That's over eighty percent】

【31: Hey. Hold on. So for twenty years we've been calling the deadlier option the "safe route"?】

The thread's atmosphere changed right there.

The scorn vanished, and in its place flowed in the obsessive heat particular to the strategy crowd.

The verification ran all night. Lesson one's "how to stand" was backed up by one of the medical-field regulars as "more accurate than the textbooks on the mechanics of balance sway." Lesson six's "how to retreat" was field-tested at a training ground by an active-duty C-rank regular, who reported, with measurement data attached, that falls while retreating had been cut in half.

【88: Let me just give the conclusion. This course isn't at the level of "correct." It's too correct. This is not the precision an individual's rules of thumb can produce. You reach this by reading your way through hundreds of death reports】

【90: Which brings us back to the original question. —Who is this old guy?】

【93: His self-introduction is just "I'm a former coach. ...Former." He never says who he coached or where】

【95: I feel like I've heard that voice before, and now I can't sleep】

◇

As for me, that day was another peaceful one.

Cooked rice, flipped through notebooks, prepped for the night's stream. A perfectly wholesome unemployed life, day eight.

The only unpeaceful thing was the numbers. Channel subscribers passed four thousand by morning, six thousand by noon, and hit ten thousand by evening. As for lesson one's archive, its view count had broken fifty thousand.

My prediction—"by tomorrow they'll be bored and back to whatever they usually watch"—kept failing spectacularly. I'd given up on the malfunction theory. Which left only one possible explanation.

"...Did Hina-chan go and promote it for me, I wonder."

I'd always thought she was an earnest girl, but this felt like trying a little too hard. I owed her my thanks sometime.

That night. I hit the Start Streaming button, and within ten seconds the viewer count had passed 【2,000】.

【He's here】

【He's the real deal】

【Came from the verification thread】

【Is the wiki seriously getting rewritten?】

Before I could open my mouth, the comment section was a flood. Let me at least say hello.

"Good evening, this is Shin. A lot of you seem to be new, so here's the usual: this is a course for beginners. No flashy techniques. No talk about the strongest gear. It's dull. Probably shockingly dull."

【We know】

【That's exactly what we came to hear】

"Lesson eight. Today—'Potions: do you hang them at the right hip or the left?'"

【Huh?】

【Too dull】

【That topic!?】

【Thread folks: this is standard operation】

What exactly is wrong with standard operation? Like always, I put the contents of my notebooks into words.

"Conclusion first: the hip opposite your dominant hand, toward the front of your body. Three reasons. First—situations where you need a potion are, by and large, situations where your dominant arm is already done for."

You can't pull a stopper with the hand still gripping your sword. So a potion stored where the other hand can't reach it might as well not exist.

"Second. Put it on your back and it breaks when you tumble. Explorers fall forward with their guard up—but backward, they go down defenseless."

"Third. This is the most important one—people on the verge of death mix up their own right and left. Perfectly normally."

So: the same place, every time. A place your hand reaches without thinking. An angle you can hook and pull even with trembling fingers. All of that together is what "where you keep it" means.

Fifteen minutes on that topic alone.

The comment section was a barrage of 【dull】 for the first three minutes, but past the five-minute mark, the current shifted.

【...Six years as an explorer and I kept my potions in a bag】

【Bags kill. My partner lost an arm that way】

【"People half-dead mix up left and right" gave me chills. That was me last week】

【How do I put this. Behind every single point this course makes, you can feel a body count】

【Just switched to my belt. Where do I pay tuition】

And then, a familiar name came swimming desperately through the flood.

【Sensei, learning so much today! Um, so, uh, the viewers have gotten really, really numerous...!】

"Ah. Right. Hina-chan."

I sat up a little straighter and turned back to the mic. If I was going to say it, now was the time.

"You promoted the course for me, didn't you? Thank you."

The comment section froze for one second.

【lolololol】

【"Promoted" lolol】

【That's not it, buddy】

【It is Hina-chan's fault, but it's not Hina-chan】

【Someone explain the situation to this old man】

【N-no, Sensei! It wasn't me...! I mean, I might have been the trigger, but...!】

I didn't really get it, but the comment section was in fine spirits today too.

"? ...Well, fine. That's it for today, then."

◇

Around the time the date rolled over, an edit war broke out on the strategy wiki's "Third Layer — Grand Corridor" page.

The verification thread's regulars rewrote the "wall-side recommended" entry that had stood for twenty years, accident data in hand. Ten minutes later, a veteran editor reverted it. In the reason field, one line: "Source is a personal stream. No reliability."

After the third revert, the verification squad tabulated its cross-checks against the Association database into tidy tables and forced through yet another edit—and at four in the morning, the administrator finally handed down a ruling.

"With data on the table, there are no grounds to reject. Revision approved."

By sunrise, the recommended route for the third-layer Grand Corridor had been rewritten to "center-side"—and for the first time in the strategy wiki's history, a personal stream's name was carved into the citation field.

【Source: Shin-san's Beginner Dungeon Course, Lesson Three】

At the end of the approval comment, the administrator added a single line.

"If something with a lower death rate than the established doctrine appears, then henceforth that is what we will call the established doctrine."

◇

Same morning. Genbu headquarters, top floor, the chairman's office.

"—Chairman. A report from the research team on that course."

The research team director stood clutching a stack of documents, face haggard from an all-nighter. The wiki revision. The verification thread's frenzy. And the possibility that the course's theoretical precision exceeded the company's own rookie training program.

Togakushi Gen didn't look at the documents.

"Shin-san's Beginner Course... was it?"

Eyes still on the city spread below his own tower, the fifty-five-year-old chairman sneered deep in his throat.

"I don't know where this nobody crawled out of, but he's surely some washed-up explorer lecturing at amateurs. Amateurs can't tell one novel-looking number from another, so they're just making noise. They'll be bored in a month and he'll disappear."

"But the wiki revision is actual damage to the industry—"

"We are a company that gathers S-rank talent. What do beginner death rates have to do with our business?"

The director closed his mouth. The documents went unaccepted, left at the edge of the reception table. He bowed and left the room. —Togakushi never knew that tucked into the last page of that stack was a note recommending a voiceprint comparison on the streamer "Shin."

Amateurs, just making noise.

The price of those words, that morning—Togakushi Gen would eventually pay it with everything he had.