chapter02 · 036-ep36

Episode 36: "The Night Before"

I thought keeping watch over a fire would be a quieter job.

Ten that night. The great hall that had housed the two-headed dragon, in the Abyss's middle layers. We'd made a camping circle against the rock wall, with two fires. Five sleeping bags lay around the fire farther back. The nearer fire was my post tonight.

I'd switched the broadcast to night mode. A stationary camera showed only one fire; audio picked up nothing beyond it. I didn't believe in hiding things from humanity, but I didn't owe humanity a view of my students' sleeping faces.

【The camera's only showing a fire, and the viewer count has a ridiculous number of digits】

【A fire burning underground where humanity's never been. That's a lot to take in】

【Tonight, all humanity is warming its hands at the same fire】

Easy for the world to be so carefree. Tomorrow we'd meet an opponent no human had ever truly met. I opened my notebook and started compiling today's report—only to be interrupted by my first visitor.

"...Sensei. Do you have a moment?"

Rei-kun. His shift was still a long way off.

"Go ahead. No tea, but there's a fire."

◇

Rei-kun sat beside me, a little offset, rather than directly opposite across the fire. The distance he chose when he wanted to talk hadn't changed in eight years.

For a while, only the firewood cracked.

"...I understand now why you refused me that day."

I didn't need to ask which day. That night two years ago, when I'd refused his offer of an exclusive coaching contract over a cheap teacup.

"There's a nineteen-year-old swordsman in my clan. Fights by instinct, has good days and bad days... He reminds me of my younger self so much it hurts. Last month he told me, 'I want to keep learning under you, Captain.'"

"...Yeah."

"I refused. Before I knew it, I was saying what you once told me: 'If I'm always beside you, whenever you're uncertain you'll start looking for my answer.' —As I said it, I realized it was true. And how cold it feels to be the one who says it."

Still watching the fire, Rei-kun continued.

"The one who sends someone off is the only one left behind in the classroom. You did it five times. Smiling each time."

"It's a coach's job."

"...Yes. I understand that now, too. And even knowing that, I came to tell you something."

For the first time, humanity's strongest swordsman looked at me.

"When tomorrow's over, I won't count the days anymore. Not the days until I see you again. I'll come by even when I don't need help. —A classroom should be that kind of place."

Instead of answering, I added a log to the fire. Eight years together were enough for him to understand.

◇

As if taking his place, the next visitor arrived. Not with anything loud enough to call footsteps, though.

Mio-san stood in front of me without a word and held out a notebook without a word.

Not new. A thick volume worn until its corners had rounded. On the cover, in lettering as straight as if drawn with a ruler, it said:

"Hiiragi Shinichi — Complete Course Record."

I opened it and forgot to breathe.

Lesson one, how to stand. Lesson two, how to retreat. Lesson thirty-six, how to place your footsteps—every stream was bound inside, with its date, key points, and her own verification results. Even the older lessons she'd apparently written up from the archives had ink of matching colors. From lesson one to last night's. Not one missing.

Observe, put it into words, bind it in a notebook. What I'd spent twenty years doing for others—this girl had spent two years doing for me.

"Mio-san, this is..."

"Additional note," she said. "Two years ago, I couldn't write a farewell note. ...This is in its place. It took me two years to finish. That is all."

Only the last page was still blank.

"Tomorrow's entry isn't written yet," Mio-san said. "I'll write it after we return. So tomorrow, Sensei, please talk the way you always do. Don't do anything reckless that will make things difficult for the person keeping the record. That is all."

"...I'll do my best."

"Additional note. 'Your best' is not good enough."

With that, she went back to her sleeping bag. The heaviest farewell note in the world remained in my lap.

◇

"Pops. Awake?"

I thought I felt the ground sink a little before I heard his voice. Maru-kun plopped down by the fire and drew a small metal flask from inside his clothes.

"...Maru-kun. We're in the middle of an operation."

"I know. That's why we're only pouring it."

He lined up two cups and tilted the flask. A centimeter of amber liquid gleamed at the bottom of each.

"Something my late master taught me. 'The night before a big battle, pour yourself a drink, but go to sleep without touching it.' —So you've got a reason to come back and finish it, he said."

We held that centimeter of liquor up to the firelight.

"Two years ago, I ran away from this place. Threw away my shield and ran like hell. ...Tomorrow we've got a procedure. Nine days practicing that 'clean escape' of yours. So I'm not afraid anymore—I'd like to say that, but it'd be half a lie. Scary things are scary."

"Yeah. It's okay to be afraid. Fear's where observation begins."

"Ha. ...That's just like you, Pops."

Maru-kun stood and carefully set his still-full cup on a rock beside the fire.

"When we get home, I'm having your cooking. Seven servings won't be enough next time. Bring the whole rice pot."

◇

I didn't know when the fourth visitor arrived. By the time I noticed him, he was crouched just outside the circle of light.

"...Remember what I told you about my balance, Sensei?"

"'I only trust what's in the account.' I remember. It was a good line."

"Nonsense from a seventeen-year-old kid. ...And you've been depositing into it for eighteen hundred lines since then."

Yagarasu-kun smiled without looking at the fire.

"You've still got those three notebooks, right? In the cardboard boxes in your six-mat room?"

"Of course."

"Then when we get home, fix the last line. You got it wrong."

"Yagarasu's kindness always takes the shortest route. He's the only one who mistakes it for coldness." I knew the last line by heart; I'd written it.

"Make 'mistakes' past tense. ...Not telling you when that changed, though."

"I'll correct it. In red ink."

"Yeah. And about the interest," he said as he stood. "Your account's got the biggest balance in human history now. Not just a hundred thousand; more people make deposits every night than it's worth counting. ...Tomorrow, withdraw it all. I mean, don't hold back from using us."

Just before he melted into the shadows, Yagarasu-kun added without turning around,

"Though you won't call it 'using' us. You'll call it 'observing' us. —Fine by me. That's what makes you strongest."

◇

The fifth visitor politely said "Excuse me" before sitting beside me.

After that, she said nothing.

Neither did I.

Kokoro-chan picked up a piece of firewood and gently set it where the fire was collapsing. The flames rose a little. She did that tiny task with such care.

She'd written fifty-one drafts over two years. I already knew how long she needed to find her words. So I waited—but the words never came. Instead, she smiled faintly at the fire. It was a smile that had nothing to do with deserving to be here, or apologizing, or any of that.

As she stood, she spoke once.

"Sensei. Tomorrow, I'm going to stand at the center of the circle."

"Yeah. That's the position the team decided on."

"Yes. ...I think it's the warmest place in the world."

She bowed, wished me good night, and returned to her sleeping bag.

◇

My last visitor arrived to take over the watch.

"Sensei, it's my turn! ...Huh? What's with all these cups?"

"Lots of visitors. Popular fire we've got here."

Hina-chan sat beside me and watched the flames for a while. Then she made the least boastful boast in the world.

"Sensei. I was the very first viewer of your course, wasn't I?"

"Yeah. The illustrious 【1】."

"I'll brag about that for the rest of my life. Even when I'm a grandma. 'I found the course that rewrote humanity's common sense of dungeon strategy before anybody else did.' ...Hehe. My grandchildren definitely won't believe me."

"There's proof. Twenty-three questions in the archive comments, each with a timestamp."

"Ah! Please delete those! Reading them now, I'm so embarrassingly desperate!"

"No. They're part of humanity's cultural heritage now."

Hina-chan laughed. Then she spoke quietly to the fire.

"...I want to tell the me who'd failed four times in a row. Hang in there a little longer, and you'll be keeping watch over a fire on humanity's very first night down here, with Sensei and the strongest people in the world."

I tried to say something clever.

Failed.

Instead, something behind my eyes grew hot all by itself. In front of another person, probably for the first time in forty-two years. Unfortunately, I didn't even have a teacup to hide the lower half of my face behind.

"...Sensei?"

"No. ...It's the smoke. In my eyes."

"The smoke isn't blowing this way, though."

"Hina-chan. Turning your powers of observation on Sensei violates the classroom rules."

"Hehe. Okay."

On my lap, a farewell note two years in the making. On a rock, two cups holding a centimeter of liquor. In my pocket, a promise to stop counting the days and a request for a correction in red ink. And beside me, viewer number one.

...Honestly.

"My life wasn't wasted after all."

I hadn't meant to say it aloud.

Hina-chan pretended she hadn't heard and added a log to the fire. A good student. She'd already mastered the step beyond observation and putting things into words—"notice it, and don't say anything."

"Good night, Sensei. Leave the rest to me."

"Yeah. ...Good night."

◇

I slept without dreaming and woke to an alarm.

Mio-san's measuring device was making a sound I'd never heard before. By surface time, it was around dawn. Everyone geared up in thirty seconds—nine days of training don't lie—and looked deep into the tunnel.

Pale lights had begun to appear, one after another, along the descending route to the deepest level. They weren't our markers.

"Additional note. They aren't hostile signals. No pressure, no sound... This is..."

Mio-san raised her face from the device.

"...The road is opening. From the other side. That is all."

Yagarasu-kun laughed softly.

"Well, well. —Looks like we're invited."

The deepest part of the Abyss was inviting humanity in.

I opened my notebook to a new page and wrote its first line.

【Final day. Everyone goes in, and everyone comes home.】