ch41-ch60 · 048-ch47

Chapter 47

Kagurazaka Chizuru was walking along a prefectural road.

After finishing Kujo Reiko's stream with Mido Airi in her hotel room, Toru's own exploration stream had started on his personal channel, just as Reiko had declared. She kept watching Toru's stream — Airi left to get lunch at some point, and came and went for various things — but in the end, from start to finish until they defeated the boss on the thirteenth floor, Chizuru never moved from in front of the screen.

Hayasaka Toru... hadn't looked that happy in front of them.

Of course not. They'd only been saved by him, requested his cooperation, explored the labyrinth together, and then during the subsequent Dungeon Rampage, they'd been saved by him again.

Other than paying him, they'd given nothing to Toru. And even that payment had only come about after a dispute — there was no way he had any good feelings about them. The reward for the exploration, the reward for suppressing the Dungeon Rampage, and even the reward for taking down that five-headed hydra — all of it was probably still unpaid. Despite the earlier incident where they'd angered him, they'd learned nothing from that mistake. Laughable.

She couldn't give him anything the way Kujo Reiko could.

Begging, clinging to, and using the Sword God... a base exploiter.

The moment Toru's stream ended, Chizuru left the hotel half on impulse. Perhaps out of habit, she'd brought her personal magic bag, but she only realized she was still in her usual exploration wear — practically underwear — when she noticed the startled looks from passersby.

What am I doing.

She pulled a light coat from her magic bag and threw it on, then put on spare combat boots since she'd been barefoot. But she still couldn't think straight.

She kept wandering, and before she knew it, she was walking along a mountain-adjacent prefectural road. Where is this, she wondered, but she hadn't brought her mobile device.

The only things in her magic bag were exploration gear and emergency rations. The large-capacity magic bag used by the clan was with Mido Airi.

...Well, whatever.

In a throwaway mood, she kept walking along the prefectural road. She felt like the weather had been fine in the morning, but without her noticing, the sky had become covered in dark clouds, and then, as if on cue, rain began to fall in patters. Fitting for my mood, Chizuru thought, letting herself get wet and laughing.

That's why you're—

It was only natural she'd been looked down on by the Kagurazaka house. She had no talent for the sword. No talent for combat. She couldn't match her older sister, older brother, younger sister, or younger brother.

But then, in middle school labyrinth exploration training, everything was turned upside down.

The Kagurazaka sword techniques had been completely useless, but her mana affinity was so absurdly high, the physical enhancement from mana was so overwhelming, the power behind her mana-infused movements was so ridiculous, that in no time she stopped losing to almost anyone in the Kagurazaka house.

—You coward—

Ah, indeed, that was true. With only half-baked swordsmanship, she entered an explorer training school on the government's money. She made friends, explored labyrinths with them, and thought she'd gotten stronger.

But... in the end, this was it.

She'd run from her family, become a member of Anthem, and resolved to use her life for Anthem and the people... or so she'd told herself.

Then she saw the Sword God's technique, and it all crumbled instantly.

She learned that the pinnacle of the sword existed at a height too high to reach — something she'd thought she no longer cared about — and yet she wanted to climb again. Despite causing nothing but trouble for that Sword God, she arbitrarily revered him, admired him, and even felt jealousy.

...Ah, truly, I am a coward.

She envied Kujo Reiko — who could make Hayasaka Toru smile.

That she could think such a thing... it was so hideous, she loathed herself.

Before she knew it, the rain had turned into a full downpour, soaking her evenly from head to toe, but she was barely aware of it as Kagurazaka Chizuru kept walking.

◇◇◇

Whether it was good luck, bad luck, or mere coincidence.

She'd been walking in a daze, but her steps were still those of an explorer, and before she knew it, she'd covered considerable distance.

Following the mountain-adjacent prefectural road, unconsciously turning off at some point and heading toward the mountains, she eventually found herself in a strange place.

The asphalt underfoot was torn up in places, gouged out along with the earth. The surrounding trees had been mown down as if something enormous had rampaged through, and a single building had been utterly demolished.

Her boot toe clinked against something — a fragment of what appeared to be a terminal keyboard from inside the building. Not a residence, but some kind of office...?

"Ah — this is Sugai Dungeon, isn't it."

This wasn't just similar — it was the aftermath of a truly enormous monster rampaging through.

Looking more carefully, about twenty meters from where Chizuru stood, a compact car was parked with its rear passenger door inexplicably still open. It was Hayasaka Toru's personal car, which she'd seen yesterday when they moved from the hotel to Kamioka Dungeon.

He'd probably charged in without caring if the car got wrecked, all to stop the Dungeon Rampage. Chizuru had no way of knowing how much money he lived on, but for an ordinary person, totaling a personal car was not an amount you could just laugh off.

We absolutely have to get him compensated for this, Chizuru thought reflexively, then mocked herself for it. What right did she have to talk about compensation, when it wasn't even her money?

"Hahaha... at this rate, I'm no different from a stalker, am I."

Time-wise, it wouldn't be strange for Toru and his group to exit Sugai Dungeon soon. On the lower floors, they'd clear the distance from staircase to staircase in no time.

"...I can't... face him..."

She felt like crying. But even that urge to cry was selfish, she knew, plunging her into terrible self-loathing.

What should she do?

At the very least, she knew standing here letting the rain beat down on her was not the answer, but she couldn't bring herself to return to the hotel and wait for Megumi and the others.

She wanted someone, something, to show her the way.

What would Megumi say? What would Airi say? Sanagi? Or Ilseria? Nanami? Or... yes, what about "Teacher"?

Her comrades flashed through her mind. Surely she would disappoint them.

But this was Kagurazaka Chizuru.

The real face of the woman who'd desperately put up a front, insisting she'd use her life for the people.

"—Anthem's Kagurazaka Chizuru...?"

Suddenly, a voice.

Without Chizuru noticing, she'd advanced to beside Toru's abandoned compact car, close enough to see the gaping entrance of Sugai Dungeon beyond the thoroughly wrecked site.

Between Chizuru and the dungeon entrance.

A man in a dark gray suit stood there.

He let the expensive-looking suit get soaked as if indifferent to the pouring rain, his somewhat long black hair swept back in a manner that seemed bothered by it, but it kept falling loose, tousled by the rain. His features were sharp, but there was something off about him.

"...You know me. And who might you be?"

Being part of an idol explorer clan like Anthem, she was used to situations where the other party knew her but she didn't know them.

But the man in the dark gray suit didn't have the air of someone who'd happily stumbled upon an Anthem member by chance. Rather, he seemed bewildered, as if wondering why she was here. And that was a question Chizuru herself should have been asking.

This was where a Dungeon Rampage had occurred last night.

No general workers had come to clean up the wreckage because Sugai Dungeon hadn't been confirmed safe yet. Kujo Reiko seemed to have used her connections to enter Sugai Dungeon under the guise of investigation — but what about this man?

"I'm from the S City Labyrinth Department. I came to check on the situation after the rampage..."

"Do you have anything to prove your identity?"

Something about the man's words rang utterly false, and Chizuru forgot her exhaustion and trance-like state, following the wariness sprouting inside her as she approached him.

"Well, I don't have anything handy... my apologies."

"Checking on the post-rampage situation alone, without an umbrella in this rain? That's rich coming from me, but surely a civil servant wouldn't come on foot to investigate. If you came to investigate, why don't you have a camera? And more fundamentally, it's strange that you can't produce identification while on the job."

"............"

Two steps, three steps, four.

With each step closer, the man's expression twisted. At the same time, Chizuru clearly felt mana leaking from him, and she retrieved a belt with her sword still attached from her magic bag, snapping the buckle over her coat.

A motion she'd repeated countless times — she could equip it with her eyes closed.

"—Who are you?"

"Tch! Sharp instincts for a little girl. I'll say this much — I'm not your enemy. I came to check if there were any traces left behind... but why the hell is an Anthem explorer coming to the Sugai Dungeon entrance, on foot?"

The suited man dropped his feigned politeness, smoothing back his rain-tangled black hair with his hand and adjusting it into a swept-back style again.

He showed no fear despite Chizuru already reaching for the sword at her hip.

"That's a maiden's secret. I'll repeat myself — who are you?"

"Then it's corporate secrets on my side. I'll let you off, so don't come any closer, little girl."

"I can't just say 'oh, I see' and let someone this blatantly suspicious go. I suppose Toru-sama and the Kujo girl will be returning shortly. I was worried about not having my mobile device, but if I detain you, I can have the Kujo girl — no, her butler — contact the relevant parties. This is your final warning. Do you intend to state your affiliation and purpose?"

"Affiliation is an evil secret organization. Purpose is world peace."

"Bleah" — the man stuck out his tongue and laughed, and Chizuru returned a smile of her own — stepping in and drawing her blade.

—No, she couldn't draw.

The man had closed the distance in an instant, holding down the pommel of her sword. Ignoring the man's triumphant grin, Chizuru deliberately relaxed her strength, dissolving the deadlock. The man's hand, which had been pushing to block her draw, now pushed her sword forward along with her body.

She pivoted — a shoulder check.

Techniques like this existed naturally in classical swordsmanship, and even Chizuru, who'd been a failure in the Kagurazaka house, was capable of such feats.

Without taking her eyes off the man sent flying as if hit by a car, she finally drew her sword from her hip. A technique that exploded the mana stored in the sheath, enhancing the speed and power of the draw, with a secondary mana slashing wave launched.

The mana slashing wave struck the man mid-flight through the air.

But the man twisted his body nimbly even while airborne, deflecting the mana slash by knocking it upward from below. With bare hands.

"You're one scary woman. If I hadn't blocked that, I'd have been split in two."

The suited man landed lightly with a soft thud and grumbled.

Chizuru gripped her sword with both hands, lowered her hips, and let the tip flow behind her in a side stance.

"That attack wouldn't have been fatal to someone with your mana defense. I don't know who you are, but you're at least upper B-rank or higher as an explorer."

"I told you, I'm with an evil secret organization. So obviously I'm a villain."

The self-proclaimed "villain" laughed easily, full of composure, but Chizuru didn't bother to close in and cut him down.

If he ran, she'd launch a flying slash. If he came at her, she'd counter.

This stance, exposing half her body, was for her a preparatory motion for a surprise attack — a counter-fighting style.

"...What, not coming? But you don't seem willing to let me go either. Fine then, I'll play along. Show me what you've got — the youngest A-rank explorer's so-called power."

He lifted his arms languidly, tousling his swept-back black hair roughly. At the same time, the pressure of mana emanating from him rose distinctly.

As casually as adjusting a gas stove's flame, what had been upper B-rank surged to mid A-rank... no, possibly even rivaling upper A-rank mana pressure.

A chill ran down her spine, as if every pore in her body was numbed.

Because the man's skin had turned a pale purple, and his somewhat narrow eyes had... dyed into a pale blue.

"Idiot."

A voice, as if bored, tinged with disappointment, right beside her.

An approach so instant there wasn't even time to blink. With her sword held to the side and flowing behind her, she couldn't intercept in time. Without matching your response to the enemy's opening move, there's no way to counter.

"Hmph—!"

With a split-second decision, she released her sword and managed to deflect the man's "claw strike" — like a bear tearing into prey — by striking his wrist before the full force could land. It was the reverse of the earlier blocked draw... though calling it that would be far too generous.

Of course, merely deflecting wasn't the end. Using the flow of the opponent's power, combining footwork and body movement, she threw the man using the principle of aiki. She didn't grab his arm because he'd certainly have shaken her off — or rather, she'd have liked to say that, but the truth was she simply lacked the composure to grab him.

"Wha—!?"

Just before he was slammed head-first into the ground, the man punched the ground with his other hand, forcibly generating a reaction to avoid falling.

Chizuru, having moved one step too far, stepped back and caught her sword just before it hit the ground. At the same time, she twisted her body like a figure skater, arching her back parallel to the ground to dodge the man's kick. But the evasion was too large, and she ceded the turn to her opponent.

A booming heel drop.

She'd dodged the roundhouse kick only for a heel to come from above. But judging it better than the earlier "claws," she took it in the stomach. She was slammed onto her back, but at the durability level of an A-rank explorer, gravel or concrete were about the same as a gymnastics mat. Probably hitting water would be worse.

The moment her back touched the ground, Chizuru swung her sword. An ugly swing with no particular form, but she'd infused it with mana. Naturally, the man chose to evade.

In a single bound, he put about ten meters between them, and the pale purple man laughed. Or tried to. His smile twisted — why?

Because countless enormous spikes had risen from the ground, surrounding him.

With strange booming sounds, "stone spikes" as thick as birch trees thrust up from the earth. The pale purple man dodged them, but the spikes were too many and too fast. Choosing the upward direction to escape proved disastrous — in an instant, he was surrounded by the spikes, trapped within an enclosure like a "stone bud."

And then — an intense mana pressure from behind.

Chizuru stood instantly, almost unconsciously sheathing her sword and storing mana as she looked toward it. The opposite direction from the Sugai Dungeon entrance.

A man in a leather jacket and hunting cap.

A woman with gloomy long black hair.

She knew them. Not that they were close, but she knew them.

"What are you doing in this rain, Kagurazaka Chizuru? I thought you'd be starting Noumi Dungeon exploration by now... you don't seem to be a monster that escaped from Sugai Dungeon. What were you fighting?"

"...'The Hunter' Soma Kengo... and 'The Scales' Maisaka Risa... I see. Both of you are in this town too."

Soma, his name called, held a plastic cup from what looked like a fast-food place in his left hand, slurping its contents through a straw, while his right index finger lightly traced the brim of his hunting cap.

Countless question marks floated up in Chizuru's mind as to what on earth was happening, but of course, not a single clear answer presented itself.

Wondering what to do, she turned back toward the pale purple man trapped in the giant spikes — and because she turned, she noticed the group returning to the Sugai Dungeon entrance.

Kujo Reiko. The butler, Kashiwazaki Joichiro.

The holy sword spirit, Tia.

Hayasaka Toru.

"—Ah, it's a Demon."

Tia said, like a child pointing at a jet trail in the sky.