ch01-ch20 · 007-ch06

Chapter 6

Kawai Sakiho is a civil servant working at the Sugai Dungeon branch office.

Right after high school, she used her uncle's connections at city hall to get hired as a clerical worker. For the first two years, she worked a regular office job. But in her third year, her uncle's embezzlement at work was discovered, and she was transferred to the Labyrinth Department — considered a "dead end" within the city government. And of all places, to the branch office of Sugai Dungeon, an already-explored D-rank dungeon.

To be blunt, her motivation was nonexistent.

Still, there was a small amount of work to do, so Sakiho handled her daily duties half-heartedly, grumbling as she went.

At some point, a proposal came up to recruit a "cleaner" for Sugai Dungeon.

Even an explored labyrinth could serve as a "hunting ground" depending on the monsters that appeared, but Sugai Dungeon was a labyrinth where the monsters offered no real benefit, yet it wasn't even suitable as training for beginner explorers. Everyone could see that if left unattended, a "Dungeon Rampage" would eventually occur.

Though nobody could say whether that "eventually" was a year away, five years, ten, or twenty.

Humanity, having survived the 1999 World Fusion and the chain of "Dungeon Rampages" in the early 2000s, was terrified of labyrinth rampages.

So until now, former explorers in the Labyrinth Department had been assigned to hunt monsters, but Sugai Dungeon was just too pathetic. Frankly, it was a waste to send department staff there.

If that was the case, she thought, they should just destroy the dungeon core at the deepest part and be done with it — but apparently, doing that would cause a new dungeon to appear somewhere else.

Research on this hadn't progressed far, so it was still in the hypothesis stage, but it had become almost conventional wisdom, often cited as a major failure during the early 2000s "chain of Dungeon Rampages" — that "explorers destroying multiple dungeons caused new dungeons to appear." Or there were apparently cases where nearby dungeons mutated into more powerful ones.

So dungeons couldn't be destroyed lightly.

No real benefit, but easy to manage — that was Sugai Dungeon.

So they put out a call for people who couldn't even become D-rank explorers.

This was fairly unusual in Japan's labyrinth situation, but not unheard of. The cleaner position was a contracted job commissioned by the city, and the offered amount was so low that no respectable explorer clan would even consider applying.

In fact, not a single registered explorer responded to the call.

The one who raised his hand was a boy named Hayasaka Toru, who'd dropped out of high school at the time.

Having lost his family when he was caught up in an undiscovered labyrinth's "rampage," left all alone in the world, Hayasaka Toru had quickly dropped out of high school and was working multiple part-time jobs as a freeter. Apparently, he applied for the cleaner position because the city would be his contracting party, making the benefits reliable.

In short, it was because social insurance and pension would be deducted from his pay.

For a seventeen-year-old high school dropout with no social experience, he'd thought it through reasonably well. Though Sakiho thought that if he were really smart, he shouldn't have dropped out in the first place, and if he was going to drop out, he should've saved up money and taken the high school equivalency exam.

Kawai Sakiho hated Hayasaka Toru.

When she'd become aware of that — probably quite early on.

He'd show up at the branch office in what looked like construction worker clothes, tirelessly hunt the trash mobs of Sugai Dungeon every single day, with a face that showed neither enjoyment nor boredom, and turn in the garbage-quality "magic cores" he'd scraped together at the counter.

Honestly, even if he cut his workload to a fifth, the amount the city paid him probably wouldn't change. All he really had to do was regularly perform cleaning duties on the upper floors of Sugai Dungeon — it wasn't like the contract said he had to work twenty days a month.

But that boy was diligent.

His conscientiousness was just pointless.

Hayasaka Toru was someone who couldn't even become a D-rank explorer. In other words, he had no talent. By "talent" here, she meant the ability to adapt to the other world's supernatural phenomena.

What was called "magic affinity" — the talent of an explorer.

Most B-rank explorers were geniuses who'd dramatically improved their physical abilities just by defeating a single monster. A-rank was even more extraordinarily inhuman. Even dropping down to C or D ranks, they were still different from ordinary people.

But Hayasaka Toru was ordinary.

And the upper floors of Sugai Dungeon were easy enough that even an ordinary person could handle the cleaning.

That was exactly why — she hated him.

No matter how earnestly he kept hunting monsters like that, it wouldn't lead to anything.

His old high school classmates had probably cut ties with him by now. Working like that every day, he wouldn't even have time to hang out. While he was wearing down his life like this, his classmates would be enjoying their youth, going on to higher education, and a lucky few would be able to board the track labeled "winners."

Hayasaka Toru didn't have that track.

And neither did Sakiho, just going through the motions as a clerk at a labyrinth branch office.

◇◇◇

Today, the A-rank explorer clan "Anthem" was entering a labyrinth relatively close to Sugai Dungeon, so Sakiho had been looking forward to it since morning.

Younger girls with dazzling talents she didn't have, making those talents shine — yes, "Anthem" was an all-female explorer clan — she really liked watching them from afar.

For Sakiho, who had few hobbies, getting hooked on watching their streams was a rare indulgence.

Apparently there were women who got jealous of them sometimes, but to Sakiho, that was just ridiculous. Things that truly shine should be admired from a distance, shouldn't they?

So she came to work as usual, changed into her suit, and at the reception counter where no customers ever came, she openly pulled out her device to watch "Anthem's" livestream.

For this exploration, it seemed the leader Saito Megumi, the healer and most idol-popular member Mido Airi, the samurai-style swordswoman Kagurazaka Chizuru, and a dedicated cameraperson were making the attempt.

With three A-rank explorers, a B-rank dungeon was a breeze, and both before and after entering the labyrinth, the girls of "Anthem" seemed to be having fun.

Even the monsters that occasionally appeared were taken down without any danger.

"Looks like there might not be any work for Airi this time."

The one who poked Mido Airi's side with a slightly mischievous look was the leader, Saito Megumi. Airi smiled happily at that and nodded vigorously.

"If there's no work for me, that's better. Megumi-chan and Chizuru-chan, not getting hurt is the most important thing. So please don't give me any work, you two."

What a good kid.

Sakiho kept watching the stream without a care in the world, but about two hours after the stream started, the branch office's automatic doors opened.

A customer, in this backwater?

Irritated at having her enjoyment interrupted, Sakiho muted the stream's audio and put on a business smile — but when she saw who it was, she immediately adjusted her expression.

A tired-looking middle-aged man in a suit — the Labyrinth Department section chief, Sadoyama Koji.

"Mornin', Kawai-chan. Something's been bothering me, so I came by." "Good morning. Something bothering you?"

Sadoyama flashed a casual smile from the customer side of the reception counter, and Sakiho tilted her head.

Her days were always boring and unchanging. The only thing on Sakiho's mind right now was "Anthem," currently exploring Kamioka Dungeon.

"Yeah, yeah. Something bothering me. Speaking of which, do you know? I think you do, so I'll talk assuming you know — the A-rank explorer clan has come to our jurisdiction, right?"

"You mean 'Anthem'?"

The timing was so perfect that Sakiho couldn't help but chime in.

"Yeah, that girls' clan... well, I guess calling them 'girls' these days is a compliance violation. Haha, isn't it something? Girls gather together and get praised and put in the spotlight, but guys gathering together is 'excluding women' — unthinkable in the old days."

Muttering complaints, he leaned against the counter.

As a member of the so-called Other World Generation, born after the World Fusion, Sakiho couldn't really relate to that mindset, but Sadoyama's opinions didn't matter to her anyway.

"What's bothering you?"

"Ah, right, what's bothering me. Lately, I've been getting several strange reports in my area. Similar reports from multiple labyrinths. About 'hearing a tinnitus-like sound.'"

"Huh..."

Sakiho nodded, hoping he'd finish quickly. She was just nodding along — she wasn't really listening.

"Kawai-chan. Have any such reports come in from Sugai Dungeon?"

Sadoyama's lips curved into a smile, his eyes narrowing — and his atmosphere changed.

He'd been just a sloppy old man a moment ago — but now there was the sharpness of a blade, the kind of edge that belonged to someone from the field, not the administrative side. A supervisor who wouldn't tolerate mistakes from his subordinates.

An former A-rank explorer showing just a hint of intimidation.

The completely relaxed air from moments before vanished, and Sakiho flinched, meeting her superior's gaze. She couldn't help it.

Do the bare minimum of your work — that's what that look said.

Meaning, she hadn't been doing even the bare minimum of her work... no, she submitted the necessary paperwork properly, and she'd never neglected to complete those formalities.

"There was that young cleaner guy. Hayasaka-kun, right?" "Eh —?" "Kawai-chan, you had a few run-ins with him, didn't you? Suspected him of illegally obtaining 'magic cores' because the amount he submitted was suspicious. After that, Hayasaka-kun started streaming his cleaning as proof, right?" "Ah...!"

Finally, with that prompting, Sakiho remembered the report from that "cleaner" the other day.

"You have an idea?"

"Ah, well... Hayasaka-san did report to me. He said he heard a tinnitus-like sound on the third-floor corridor of Sugai Dungeon. He mentioned the relevant time in the stream too, but..."

"You don't remember?"

"...No."

"Figured it was just his imagination, so you buried the report. Well, fine. Anyway, since he was kind enough to leave video evidence, let's check it out."

Without scolding her for her clear failure, Sadoyama circled around to the clerk side of the counter and booted up the rarely-used terminal for managerial staff, connecting to the streaming site.

On the monitor appeared a streaming channel called "Recording: Cleaning Stream" — utterly plain and unremarkable. No header image, all thumbnails auto-generated, resulting in a lineup of similarly monotonous images.

"When was the day he filed that report?"

"The day before yesterday. He came back earlier than usual, so..."

"Looks like it. The stream time is shorter than normal. Hmm? Come to think of it, yesterday's stream is short too... well, let's check the relevant stream first. Oh, Hayasaka-kun left a comment on his own stream. He wrote the time in and even chapter-marked it."

Sadoyama's hands moved smoothly across the terminal. Maybe he regularly watched this kind of labyrinth exploration stream — or in Hayasaka Toru's case, cleaning stream.

"Well, let's take a look."

And Sadoyama clicked the play button.