chapter02 · 040-ep40
Episode 40: "Final Episode: The Course Goes On"
I wash rice.
No matter how much the world changes, mornings in this six-mat room begin with washing rice.
It's been a year since the certification ceremony.
I could count the changes forever.
The rank chart gained a section for "strength that doesn't fight." Apparently more than three thousand people nationwide have been certified in the training division this past year. The senior explorers around the country who've fed new recruits dinner while teaching them tricks of the trade finally have a "piece of paper that makes people trust them." Genbu's training wing is open free of charge to lower-rank explorers, and standardized retreat criteria crossed the sea this year. As for explorer fatalities—according to Makabe-san, they've seen "the largest drop since statistics began."
Some things haven't changed.
This apartment, with its 58,000-yen rent. All seven of them told me to move. I refused. The hallway is just the right width for practicing with your toes.
The cardboard boxes of notebooks by the wall still hold a little over a hundred—no, that's a lie. I counted last week. There are 120 now.
I turn on the rice cooker and power up the streaming equipment.
5:58 a.m.
The classroom moved to the morning six months ago. With students all over the world, no matter when I streamed, it was "the middle of the night for somebody." We decided my morning was as good a reference point as any. I've been an early riser for twenty years. Besides, working adults on their way to work often attend the morning course. You can practice how to stand even on a packed train.
Six o'clock on the dot.
"Good morning. Let's begin the beginner dungeon course."
【Good morning, Sensei】
【Morning】
【It's nine p.m. here. Brazil contingent reporting in】
【Subtitle translation squad in position for fourteen languages today】
【Sensei, we started with rice sounds again】
"The rice cooker isn't on by accident. It's part of the production. ...I'm lying. I forgot to turn it off."
I've stopped looking at the viewer count. I thought I'd graduated from getting nervous whenever it gained a digit back when it read 【0】 in lesson one.
And among the regulars is an account that types only 【Present】 at precisely six every morning. I'll keep the name to myself, but the fifty-six-year-old new student has perfect attendance so far. I like knowing that the man I watched descend the rusty stairs sits in the front row of this classroom every morning.
◇
"Three announcements before the main topic."
One: next week's joint practical session will be taught by Coach Kenjo.
【Humanity's strongest gets called 'Coach' and answers like it's normal. Never gets old】
【Kenjo-style footwork basics are hell, but they keep you alive. Recommended】
Once a month, Rei-kun comes to this six-mat room to complain. "Sensei. Teaching is harder than cutting things," humanity's strongest says with a perfectly serious face. I always tell him the same thing: if you've realized that, you've learned half of how to teach.
Two: Hyodo-san's "Complete Course Record: Second Edition" comes out this month. There's a discount for students, apparently.
【Additional note. All royalties will go toward training facilities for lower-rank explorers. That is all.】
【The author herself is here】
【We live in a world where 'Additional note' is official phrasing】
Three: Genbu's training wing is open free of charge this Saturday. The head of the wing will be serving his own cooking. Watch the portion sizes; he measures them by the appetites of growing boys.
Maru-kun became head of the training wing. He feeds newcomers and teaches them tricks—in other words, he's the biggest version of those experienced explorers around the country. Yagarasu-kun closed his three alt accounts and started a reconnaissance course under his public name. Oddly enough—or perhaps not, to me—he writes the most thoughtful corrections on his students' assignments. Kokoro-chan trains "the people who protect those who protect others" at a school for healers, and brings ten of her students to this Monday slot at a time.
What I passed on goes from each of them to somebody new, wherever they are.
A coach's work vanishes the moment the student graduates. I once wrote that. Time for a correction. —It doesn't vanish. It changes names and multiplies.
【I'm late! B-rank Amaha, reporting back from the dungeon!】
"Good morning. I told you to sleep after a dive, didn't I?"
【Brought two juniors back safely from their first trip to the fourth layer! I couldn't skip either the report or the lesson, so I came!】
Ninety percent of fatalities happen in layers shallower than the fourth. She'd brought two juniors back unhurt from their first trip to the fourth layer and come straight to class. That's the kind of B-rank Hina-chan is now. Her belt pouch holds sword-care tools and a notebook labeled "Volume One — Footwork." Inside are her observations, in her own words. Not copies of my notes. Good. That's how it should be.
Incidentally, she's still enrolled. I'm not ready to let her graduate yet.
◇
"Now for today's topic—but first, let me take a question."
I scrolled up through the comments. Greetings from the regulars. Reports of time zones. Demands for Maru-kun's recipes. Among them, sitting all alone, I found this:
【Hello. I have a question. I've failed my promotion exam four times. Should I give up?】
The comment section stopped.
After a few seconds of silence, it slowly burst open.
【Hey】
【Hey, wait a second】
【I know that opening line】
【All the old-timers sit seiza. History's about to repeat itself】
Easy, easy. You'll scare the newcomer.
Four times, huh?
I didn't recognize the name. From this side of the screen, I didn't know where they lived, how old they were, or whether they had talent.
I knew just one thing. After failing four times, before giving up on a fifth attempt, this person had found a course for beginners and asked a middle-aged stranger the scariest question in the world.
—They stood in the same place as the most talentless man alive had stood twenty-odd years ago, when he wrote the first line of his notebook so he wouldn't die.
Hina-chan's comment quietly passed across the screen.
【From someone who failed four times: one thing. —On your fifth try, the world looks different.】
I narrowed my eyes and turned back to the microphone.
"Good question."
The same words I'd said that day came out naturally.
"Now, then. Today, let's talk about the basics."
From the oldest cardboard box, I pulled out the first of the nameless notebooks. The first page I'd written more than twenty years ago, when no one in the world expected anything of me, so I wouldn't die.
"Lesson one. —'Before we talk gear, please let me start with how you stand.'"
It's dull. Probably shockingly dull.
—But you'll stop dying.
【It's started】
【This course will start again as many times as it needs to】
【To the one who failed four times: welcome to the strongest classroom in the world】
◇
I ended the stream, ate fresh rice, and wrote just two lines in my notebook.
【One new student. Familiar opening line. Continue observing.】
【Classroom full. Still, there are as many seats as we need.】
There are more students in what was once an empty classroom than I can count now. But what I do hasn't changed a bit since that first night.
Observe, put it into words, pass it on.
And one day, the person you passed it to passes it on to someone else.
The course that rewrote humanity's common sense of dungeon strategy goes on today, as shockingly dull as ever.
—The course goes on.
(The End)