chapter01 · 016-ep16

Episode 16: "A Shutout"

The roar shook the rocky cavern from top to bottom.

Dust swept across the viewing building's giant monitor. In the broadcast six hundred thousand people were watching at once, the petite figure vanished for an instant.

【Hina-chan!?】

【Did she dodge!? Hey, show us! The narrow passage in the eastern section!】

【No way she can do this, that's a fifth-layer boss-class monster...!】

The dust thinned. The girl was standing there. Just half a step outside the path of the charge.

"S-she dodged! Examinee Amaha Hina has evaded the charge! But her opponent is far beyond the expected standard—I can't imagine she can keep doing that!"

The play-by-play announcer's voice climbed. In the commentary booth, I enlarged the feed on my screen. Toes pointed outward. Heels down. Eyes up. —Yeah. She's shaking. The right kind of shaking.

"Everyone, before you panic, let me explain what she's about to do. It's what we covered in lesson nine: 'Breaking Down Danger.'"

【Lesson nine? The one where he explained it with a goblin!?】

【She's going to take THAT on with beginner fundamentals?】

"Danger isn't one big number. Speed, weight, toughness, temperament, and how well it fits the terrain. They're all separate parts. Look at them together and you get one big lump called 'can't win.' But break them down—and you can take away the parts one at a time."

I set down my teacup.

"She's already finished breaking it down. Watch her. It'll probably be dull. Shockingly dull—and it'll go in the textbooks."

◇

(First part. Speed.)

Amaha Hina counted as she pulled back.

That charge was fast. But it was only fast in a straight line. The narrow passage in the cavern turned. Every time it rounded a corner, that huge body scraped the wall and slowed. —I don't have to take away its speed. The terrain will do it for me.

(Second. Weight.)

Something that heavy couldn't stop. And if it couldn't stop, it couldn't choose where it stopped.

(Third. Habits.)

Before a charge, it put its weight on its right foreleg. At the end, its head always dipped. And—its carapace was three centimeters wider than this passage.

The voice from the riverside at dusk came back to her. "As long as you can observe, your exam is still going."

She exhaled. Hina sheathed her sword.

"Th-the examinee has sheathed her sword!? She's put her weapon away in this situation!"

【What is she doing!?】

【No way—her sword!?】

I was probably the only one in the commentary booth smiling.

"That's right. She doesn't need a sword for this. —Don't fight with a weapon against something you can't beat with a weapon. We covered that in lesson nine, too."

◇

Later strategy textbooks would describe the next eight minutes as "the first complete example of using terrain to guide a large specimen in combat."

The girl kept running away. But it wasn't just flight. Two corners, three charges. Lure it in, step aside, pull back again. With every charge, the huge body scraped against the walls, shedding white dust from the seams of its carapace.

In front of the control room monitors, Chief Examiner Sakuma noticed something. The girl's retreating path hadn't once left the map she'd made herself right after entering.

(...She's not running away. She's taking it somewhere.)

At the far end of the narrow passage lay the edge of a fissure, marked on the eastern section's survey map only with the words "Caution: Keep Out."

The girl crossed the ledge just short of it first, then waited. The huge creature came on, its feet biting into the rock. Toward a single point like the narrowing throat of the passage—those three centimeters it lacked.

A charge. Half a step.

Its carapace bit into the rock. Wedged tight, the huge body stopped completely for the first time. And as it always did at the end of a charge, its head dipped, horns and all.

Something that heavy couldn't stop. With nowhere else to go, its mass bore down all at once on the edge of the weathered rock shelf.

With a dry crack, the floor gave way.

The creature roared once, then vanished into the dark fissure, dragged down by its own weight.

—On that day, it was the only thing to fall in the Fourth Managed Labyrinth. Before or since.

◇

The viewing building was dead silent.

No one could remember how to make a sound. There hadn't been a single flashy technique. Not one finishing blow. The girl hadn't even drawn her sword again. With nothing but how she walked, the corners, and half a step, the fifth-layer boss-class monster was gone.

On the monitor, she didn't turn her back on the collapsed floor. Her hand resting on her sword hilt, she kept her eyes on the fissure until the control room checked the sensors at the bottom and its announcement—"Target specimen incapacitated"—had finished playing. Her stance didn't relax once.

Then she sat down where she was and started counting her light, her pulse, and her remaining medicine. Just like she always did in the course.

"...You fixed that habit of yours after winning."

Apparently my mutter had reached the microphone. Someone clipped it later.

A beat passed—and the viewing building erupted.

They said the cheers, mingled with feet pounding the floor, reached all the way to the rocky-cavern exam site. The comments were moving too fast to read.

【WOOOOOOOOOOOO】

【A shutout! An absolute shutout!】

【Forget unhurt—she didn't even draw her sword again!?】

【I just saw dull reach its final form】

【So THAT'S what he meant by 'in the textbooks'...!】

In the control room, Sakuma finished writing on the score sheet and turned to the man beside him.

"Special exam supervisor. Any objections to the verdict?"

Iizumi Seiji didn't move, his eyes still on the monitor. Fundamentals were tools for surviving what you expected. They couldn't stop what came from outside your expectations—or so he'd thought. But on that screen, the girl had broken the unexpected down into parts and laid them out on a shelf, one by one.

"...None."

Sakuma nodded and turned to the broadcast microphone. The same words he'd spoken a month ago came out.

"No question about it. —Pass."

◇

After the celebration came the investigation. That's the order the internet works in these days.

The preserved culling records. The words "minimum permitted by regulations." The special exam supervisor's work history and next month's personnel reshuffle. Once again, the dots became a line in no time. The Association's investigation concluded it was "within regulations," and there were no disciplinary measures. The evidence never quite came together.

Public opinion, though, moves faster than a court.

【No punishment, but we all know what happened】

【Genbu can't train its ace without someone getting hurt, but when it comes to setting up harassment, it's world-class】

【And then that harassment became the stage for 'humanity's first shutout victory.' It's practically art】

The Dungeon Agency investigator who'd come to observe left one comment for the reporters crowding around him: "We saw an unparalleled example of prevention through education. My report is going to be long."

As for me, I mentioned the exam just once on that night's stream.

"You know, it's quicker to close a loophole in the system than to spend time blaming people for it. All the records were kept and made public. Everyone knows where the loophole is now. —So it'll get closed. That's how these things work."

【Sensei was Sensei again today】

【We're all boiling mad and this guy's the only one keeping his cool】

After the stream, I wrote one line in my notebook.

【Amaha Hina — B-rank. Habit after winning: corrected. Next task — experience being the one who entrusts her back to someone else.】

◇

Clan Genbu headquarters. The chairman's office on the top floor.

Togakushi Gen was alone. On the terminal at the edge of his desk sat the complete exam recording shared by the Association. He'd lost count of how many times he'd played it.

Rewind. Half a step. Rewind. Sheathing the sword. Rewind. The corner.

—Observation, and putting it into words.

How many years ago had it been? That man had come to the chairman's office once with a proposal. "On Systematizing the Fundamentals Curriculum." Teaching materials built from observation records, to lower fatalities among lower-ranked explorers. An unprofitable, dull stack of paper.

"There's no money in this."

Togakushi had said that and pushed it back. He remembered saying it. Why spend the effort it took to raise an S-rank saving E-ranks?

On the screen, a seventeen-year-old girl moved half a step, and something no human being could have beaten head-on sank under its own weight.

That was—the finished version of that stack of paper.

Playback ended. Reflected in the black screen was the face of a fifty-five-year-old man.

The silence lasted much longer than the five seconds at the press conference. In the unwatched office, Togakushi Gen's expression darkened for the first time.

◇

A few nights later, the course began as usual.

"Good evening, this is Shin. If anyone's new, 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】

【I hear there's a beginner course that's produced a B-rank explorer】

【Sensei, which fundamental are we doing today?】

"Today it's how to tie a rope. Dull, right? But this is another one that'll keep you from dy—"

Something strange in the comments swallowed the rest of the sentence.

Not a golden frame. A blue verification badge. And in the middle of the screen sat a name I knew all too well.

【Shishiomaru · Official】"Pops, it's me. I wanna start over as your student."

It was the sound of humanity's hardest shield knocking straight on the door of the beginner course.