chapter01 · 021-ep21

Episode 21: "Envoys from the State"

Morning visitors generally fall into three categories. Deliveries, neighborhood circulars—and the kind that change the direction of your life.

The doorbell rang. I put the rice I'd washed in the cooker, then opened the door.

Two men in suits stood at the top of the outside stairs. The older one opened a black ID case that looked much like a police badge. The national crest, and the words "Dungeon Agency."

"Makabe, Safety Statistics Division. You're Hiiragi Shinichi-san, correct?"

"...Yes. Um, let me say this first."

After twenty years behind the scenes, I could at least guess why a government office would come calling. I bowed my head.

"If this is about the stream, I'll stop today if you tell me to. It's true I don't have a license."

The two men looked at each other. For some reason, the younger one looked close to tears.

"The opposite," said Investigator Makabe. "We've come to ask you for something. —May we come in?"

◇

I only had two cushions in my six-mat room. I gave mine to the younger man and lined up three teacups. Makabe looked slowly around the room and adjusted his glasses.

"...So this is the classroom."

"It's just a six-mat room, really."

"I know. Speaking as a man who's read forty thousand death reports—this six-mat room keeps more people alive than any facility our agency operates."

Makabe Toshinori. Eighteen years at the Dungeon Agency Safety Statistics Division. The man who'd spent those years classifying the ways explorers died took a sip of tea, then laid a thick stack of papers on the tatami.

"Last month, for the first time in eighteen years, the agency formally adopted a new cause-of-death classification code. P-1: prevention through education. ...We collected over a hundred cases for its adoption. Every single one originated in this six-mat room."

"There's always a reason behind the numbers. In eighteen years, I've never seen so many reasons converge in one place."

"...That's because the viewers practiced clenching their toes in their hallways. I was just talking beside them."

"Today I've come to put a price on that 'talking beside them.'"

That was his first order of business: an official qualification for "explorer training instructors." He wanted me to oversee the curriculum for a national system built around teaching people how not to die.

"I observed Amaha-san's promotion exam in person. As promised, my report was long. —Turning that long report into a system is the work before us now."

"I'm B-rank."

"I know," Makabe answered at once. "We aren't looking for someone strong. We're looking for someone who has a systematic way of teaching people to stay alive. Statistically, there was one person in the country who fit."

I put down my teacup and thought for a moment. I tried to find a reason to refuse, but all I found were conditions.

"...I have just two requests."

"I'm listening."

"First, make this a qualification that earns trust if you have it, not one that forbids you to teach if you don't. If teaching requires a license, some old man running a dojo out in the country, or a senior teaching a newcomer tricks over a meal, becomes a criminal. Kids will die because of that. They will."

The younger man began taking notes at a furious pace.

"Second, don't put a combat practical on the exam. If there's a practical, make it a teaching practical. Make an exam that strong people pass, and you'll churn out strong people who can't teach. ...In my industry, that's probably killed more people than anything else."

Makabe studied me in silence, then nodded deeply.

"I'll take those back. —No. I'll make your exact words the bones of the regulations."

◇

When that part of the conversation was over and I'd refilled the tea, I asked one more thing.

"I hear people online have been saying the course is legally gray."

"I've seen it." Makabe's voice didn't change temperature. "There's no provision of current law it violates. I checked with the agency's legal department before coming here today. ...While we're on the subject, posts of that kind show a statistical bias in when their accounts were created and what hours they're active. That falls outside this agency's jurisdiction, so I'll say no more."

There was always a reason behind the numbers, the investigator said again.

◇

Just when I thought they were getting ready to leave, Makabe glanced at the younger man. His subordinate switched off the recorder, packed the documents into his bag, bowed, and stepped outside.

"What follows won't be on the record."

"...Right."

"A hypothetical." Behind his glasses, his eyes were as level as when he talked statistics. "Hiiragi-san. Suppose five S-rank explorers each attempted a dungeon separately, and all five withdrew after deciding it was 'impossible to clear alone.' What would you say they were missing?"

That was a strange hypothetical. S-ranks were called S-ranks because they could change a battle on their own. And here there were five. All five of them.

Holding my teacup in both hands, I thought for a while. When I think about these things, faces always come to me. Rei's first step. The pauses in Mio's incantations. The soles of Maru's feet. Yagarasu's shortest route. Kokoro raising her face as she healed.

"...Not equipment or levels, I'd say."

"Oh?"

"If those five are the real deal, then all five made the right decision to retreat. Someone who knows how to withdraw will withdraw when they're alone. In other words, no one made a mistake, yet none of them could reach the goal. —What's missing in a place like that isn't individual strength. It's a blueprint for the team."

"A blueprint?"

"You can have five of the strongest people alive, but without a sheet of paper to bring them into one picture, you end up with five separate lines of strength. Who watches what, and where? Whose habits fit with whose? In what order do you remove the dangers? You need somebody to draw all that on the paper first. ...A much duller job than fighting."

"And who," Makabe asked, his voice dropping just a shade, "could draw that?"

"Who knows. ...The way to draw it hasn't changed, though. Observe everyone, put what you see into words, and arrange them in an order where they fit together. That's all."

That's all.

The investigator who'd read forty thousand deaths confirmed beyond doubt that the middle-aged man in front of him had no idea what his own words meant. And having confirmed it—he was sure.

There was no one else.

"Thank you for your time." Makabe rose and bowed deeply. "We'll approach you formally about the qualification at a later date."

"Um, Makabe-san. That 'hypothetical' dungeon—"

"Officially, it doesn't exist yet."

The investigator adjusted his glasses and added quietly,

"But Hiiragi-san, speaking from experience with statistics—the things that officially don't exist have a way of suddenly becoming real one day."

◇

In the back seat of the official car, Makabe drew a bound file from his bag. Three seals marked its cover. He'd seen its highest security classification only twice in eighteen years.

Special Management Category: Unconquered Labyrinth "Abyss." Solo clearing attempts by S-rank explorers: five. Successes: zero.

"How are you going to write the report?" his subordinate asked from the driver's seat.

"It'll be long," Makabe said. Then he added a short line to the findings section.

"Candidate for operation commander: one qualifying individual."

◇

That night's stream was lesson forty, "How to Fold a Map." As usual, it was shockingly dull. I didn't mention the government. I figured I could wait until things were official, and besides, explaining the assignment took up all my time.

Before bed, I wrote just two lines in my notebook.

【Dungeon Agency—Makabe-san. Agreed to oversee qualification curriculum. Two conditions, likely to pass.】

【And the blueprint. Whoever draws it—the habits of all five are in my notebooks.】

A rather off-target thought, even for me. Well, it was only hypothetical. I turned out the light and went to sleep.

◇

That same week. The chairman's office on the top floor of Clan Genbu headquarters.

"Chairman. All of PR's additional proposals for handling public opinion are here—"

"We're done with that."

Togakushi Gen swept half the stack of approval requests off his desk with the back of his hand. Only one sheet remained. The executives froze when they read its title.

"Recontracting Negotiations with Hiiragi Shinichi"

"No more schemes. We bow our heads and buy him back." The fifty-five-year-old's voice was quiet. "I wrote the figure myself. Get moving."

The accountant who glanced at the salary figure in the approval box counted the digits three times.

The proposed annual salary for the man Togakushi had once thrown out as a "parasite coach" was—exactly one hundred times what it had been eight years ago.