ch41-ch60 · 049-ch48

Chapter 48

〈...Hello? Um, good work on the stream. This is Kawai Sakiho.〉

Toru was puzzled by the voice coming from the other end of his mobile device.

The Kawai Sakiho that Hayasaka Toru knew would never say "good work on the stream" to him, and her tone of voice was somehow humble, almost deferential.

He couldn't believe the woman who looked terminally unmotivated at the Sugai Dungeon labyrinth branch office reception desk was the same person as the one on the phone right now.

"Uh... Kawai Sakiho-san? Is this the Kawai Sakiho-san I know?"

When he asked back involuntarily, he heard a choked "uggh" from the other end.

Then several deep breaths, and the caller seemed to steel herself before saying, yes.

〈It's Kawai Sakiho, the one you saw every day at the Sugai Dungeon branch office. I watched your stream. You're heading back from the dungeon right now, aren't you?〉

"Uh-huh..."

〈This is terribly forward of me, and I'm truly sorry, but I have something I'd like to discuss with Hayasaka-san. I'll come to you, so would it be possible to spare some time? Um... I'll work around your schedule, so...〉

"Ah... are you the real one? Not a fake Kawai-san?"

〈Guh... well, I suppose that's fair. Yes. I'm the real one. I'm sorry.〉

"For real?"

The words slipped out before he could stop them. But it couldn't be helped. The Kawai Sakiho he knew and the person speaking through the mobile device didn't overlap at all.

〈Yes, um... it's real. I'm sorry. There's something I absolutely need to talk to you about, so if you could spare some time... um, I know this is incredibly rude to ask... I'm sorry, but please, I'm asking you.〉

Her attitude was too serious.

Toru still couldn't shake the suspicion that the caller was about half a fake, but then he remembered she'd been lying on the ground next to Section Chief Sadoyama at the Sugai Dungeon entrance. Maybe she wanted to thank Tia for saving her.

"Uh... if it's thanks or anything, you don't need to do that. And apologies about the past stuff, it's a pain, so... ah... well, I can tell you're really sorry."

〈No, um... there are thanks and apologies, of course, but there's something else I need to discuss...〉

"Is that so. Uh, my place is... well, no, you wouldn't know it, right? This is a call from a personal device, isn't it? I'll send you my address, so if you could come by around when I get out of the dungeon, I'll hear you out. Sorry, but I can't say exactly what time that'll be."

〈Thank you so much...! I'll be waiting! Um... for all my rudeness, I truly apologize. Good luck with your streams going forward!〉

He could vividly imagine the caller bowing deeply.

Then the call ended, but whether the caller was really Kawai Sakiho remained about fifty-fifty in Toru's mind.

"What's wrong, Toru? You look like you ate something weird."

"Ah... it's a pain to explain, but someone I dislike turned into a weird person."

"You sure have a lot of weird people around you, Toru."

Tia gave a wry, "oh dear" kind of laugh, but unfortunately Toru didn't have a mirror. And what really bugged him was that he couldn't deny the statement itself.

He sent his address to the number that had called him. If a fake actually showed up after all that, that'd be hilarious. Probably.

"Well, whatever. Sorry, Kujo-san. Kept you waiting because of my stuff. Let's get out of here."

"Indeed. By the by, Toru-bro-sama, how did you find exploring the labyrinth together with us?"

"Not bad... ah... I mean, yeah. It was fun."

It wasn't a lie. It wasn't flattery either.

Not as a job. Not because he was asked to. It was a labyrinth exploration that would have caused him no problems at all if he'd refused — and Kujo Reiko had guided him through it, and he'd enjoyed it.

Getting happy every time he defeated a monster, getting so absorbed in fighting that he completely ignored the viewers and getting called out for it, all kinds of viewers commenting on various things even though it was Toru's stream, fighting the boss together with Kujo Reiko.

For Toru, it was the first time he'd felt something like fun.

The obsession-like feeling he'd always had toward the "labyrinths" that had taken everything from Hayasaka Toru hadn't disappeared at all... but still, he didn't think he needed to deny the feeling of actually enjoying the labyrinth.

Whether he looked serious, anguished, or was smiling cheerfully — if he defeated monsters, the Dungeon Rampage would be suppressed. Whatever his feelings, the result was the same. He'd never intended to let others dictate how he should feel, but he'd never expected he could actually enjoy it, so it surprised him.

In the end, what he had to do didn't change.

So why not "enjoy it as much as possible"?

"Yes, isn't it! Labyrinths are fun!"

The "ojou" puffed out her chest with her hands on her hips, and Toru found himself smiling back at her.

Back when he was a cleaner squashing over a hundred monsters every day, he hadn't enjoyed it. When he'd accompanied Anthem, it was just a pain.

The reason he'd enjoyed it this time was probably because she was enjoying it. Whether he'd find it fun going forward was still something Toru couldn't say.

"Bro, bro, on the money side — the reward from Anthem and the buyout price for the dragon scale were probably disgustingly low, so don't use that as a baseline. I mean, don't go expecting anything like a dream either."

The butler Joichiro, no longer holding the camera, spoke up.

"Ah... so the dragon scale can't be bought out or something?"

"Yeah. Like Ojou said, there's no system to fairly evaluate materials at that level. Buyout price would be about a million. The Labyrinth Agency will probably process it and distribute the processed gear to high-rank explorers. If you don't end up getting any of that gear, they'll probably prepare a separate special reward. But don't expect much — it won't be anything big."

"That's complicated."

"Yeah, handling super-rare materials is a pain. Honestly, I think they'd rather you pass them to someone who can process them yourself and get the gear that way. That pattern's pretty common among high-rank explorers."

"Huh..."

A dwarf at a sheet metal shop came to mind, but he doubted they had facilities to process S-rank monster rare drops. Even setting aside whether they had the skill.

"The rare drop this time, the Kumanoi Potion — if bought out by the Labyrinth Agency, it'd still be a hundred million, and at auction, like Ojou said, it could go for five or six hundred million. So money-wise, the dragon scale was just bad luck, I guess."

"Huh..."

"Rare drops like that tend to fetch higher prices through private sales than through Labyrinth Agency submission, but private sales have their own restrictions. So submitting isn't all bad — first, going through the procedure gets you special tax reduction measures. For submitting special materials to the Labyrinth Agency. Well, in your case with the dragon scale, since it went through Anthem, I dunno how it'll be handled."

Since Toru wasn't an explorer — still held only a provisional license — he found the talk interesting and refrained from interrupting, simply nodding to encourage more.

"Besides, even if it's not super-rare, submitting materials and such to the Labyrinth Agency gives you an advantage in explorer rank assessments and adds points to your explorer evaluation. Things become more flexible. Conversely, explorers who cause trouble or never submit anything to the Labyrinth Agency get the cold shoulder."

For example, when exploration requests come in for labyrinths with unexplored areas, explorers with low evaluations might get filtered out, he said.

According to Joichiro, this was an open secret — separate from the explorer's rank, there was an evaluation, and controversial exploration streamers might get restricted from accessing popular labyrinths in some cases. There were plenty of unpopular labyrinths, and Sugai wasn't the only one that needed cleaners.

"An A-rank explorer's annual income from magic core submissions averages around a hundred million, I'd say. Well, from B-rank up, rare drops can push that way higher. And puzzle labyrinths we talked about during the exploration — those have potentially limitless value. Though there are also some garbage ones."

"Huh..."

Compared to pro soccer or baseball players, it didn't seem that high, but considering the upside, maybe that was about right.

"Well, when it comes to truly letting labyrinth produce run free in the economy, the Nordic countries proved that ends pretty badly. Intense inflation, wealth and power concentrated among explorers, semi-anarchic state. Citizens who couldn't withstand inflation fled abroad, infrastructure collapsed in no time. The state managing explorer and labyrinth produce prices to a certain degree — that was unavoidable, honestly."

According to the butler, a Kumanoi Potion that could cure most illnesses could legitimately be priced at sixty billion. And leaving things in a "you can buy anything if you have enough money" state would wreck the economy.

"Those economic commentators who blathered about 'the market decides value' never took any responsibility, y'know. When the labyrinth started churning out valuable stuff and the explorer profession emerged, they still tried to apply existing economics. Complete fail."

If morality can't stop it, you have to stop it with institutions, I suppose.

"Labyrinth produce auctions are state-run too, with pretty strict restrictions. People who complain or flee overseas — you don't see many of those anymore. Private trading is about the extent of what's permitted. Try opening a market and you'll be arrested on the spot."

"So society isn't made of explorers alone, huh."

Even S-rank explorers use convenience stores and buy bottled tea.

After a quarter-century, they'd barely managed to maintain a precarious balance — or so it seemed. Probably still desperately fighting to keep it.

"Fools who say 'it's not worth it for risking your life, explorers should flee abroad, the national budget should be increased to compensate explorers' — those have died down quite a bit too."

"Uh-huh..."

If the pay were so low you couldn't live, that'd be one thing, but considering magic core and labyrinth produce income, it didn't seem like that bad a job.

Though maybe Toru felt that way because he had personal feelings toward labyrinths. But thinking that he was the only one in the world who felt that way would be far too optimistic. He figured people would still do it even with low pay.

More fundamentally.

If you don't want to do it, don't do it.

In reality, the explorer profession was popular. There was no need to ask people who absolutely didn't want to do it — they were already working for what some considered "not worth it" pay.

At some point between the World Fusion and the present, a kind of agreement had probably formed between society and explorers. Vague and ambiguous as it was, but still.

It was okay to take a bit of a loss.

If it meant maintaining daily life.

Those who didn't like it had probably left the country long ago, or self-correcting mechanisms had kicked in.

Of course, the current system wasn't optimal. There would be complaints and dissatisfaction, more or less. There were probably rules that looked absurd from the outside. Things were still being adjusted even now.

Come to think of it, humanity had never successfully built a perfect system, so maybe that was only natural. In the post-World Fusion present, the free market system was prone to collapse, it seemed.

"Toru-bro-sama. Whatever the case during the Chain Dungeon Rampage era, being an explorer nowadays isn't actually that life-threatening a profession. As someone who was a cleaner, I imagine you can appreciate this — explorers ensure a safety margin, as we did by pulling back this time."

"Incidentally, the annual number of explorer deaths is about the same as the national industrial accident death toll. Considering population ratio, it's riskier being an explorer, I'd say."

"Well, you hear about guys getting crushed by presses on the news sometimes."

"Basically, unless there's an irregular incident or accident, no one except a complete idiot dies by diving into floors beyond their capability. Of course, explorer injuries and deaths aren't covered by workers' compensation, so you should get explorer insurance. There's mandatory enrollment like compulsory auto liability insurance when you get your license, and premiums are deducted from your magic core submission rewards."

And those irregular incidents and accidents had happened right in Toru's vicinity, of all places. How to put it... he didn't want to say he was lucky, and he wasn't going to revel in tragedy, but... maybe "terrible coincidence" was the word.

"Well, as long as I'm around, I won't let Toru die. I can use recovery magic too. Losing an arm or two is no big deal."

"I only have two arms, y'know."

He couldn't help but retort, but he sighed, realizing she probably wasn't even joking. To Tia, injuries of that level were probably nothing.

What kind of enemies had the hero who once wielded the holy sword faced, and how many life-or-death situations had she survived? He didn't even want to imagine.

Just eat a parfait and laugh it up, he thought.

He didn't say it, though.

◇◇◇

"Speaking of which, Toru-bro-sama, what do you intend to do going forward?"

Kujo Reiko asked around the time they'd returned to the second floor of Sugai Dungeon. By this point, only D-rank low-tier monsters appeared, weak enough that even if they got ambushed, it wouldn't matter at all.

Just a few days ago, a furball charge would have hurt pretty badly, but Toru was now confident he wouldn't feel a thing.

Mana defense — that was what it was called.

Just like with the demon-type in the boss room, if you couldn't break through mana defense, you couldn't deal meaningful damage.

"Ah... what should I do, I guess. I think I'll do exploration streams, but like you said, Kujo-san, I feel like I should just do what I want."

"What do you mean by 'what you want'?"

"Honestly, I don't need money that badly... well, I'm not so detached that I don't need it at all, but I'd rather focus on labyrinths with unexplored areas, or cleaning unpopular labyrinths, or something like that..."

He tried pulling out fragments of his thoughts as they were, but they didn't quite form into words. It made him sound like he wanted to be a public servant, but that wasn't it. Simply — yes, more simply, he wanted self-satisfaction.

By coincidence or necessity, tragedy or comedy, he'd gained power.

And there was someone with more than enough power right next to him.

If that was the case, he might as well use his power in a way that felt good.

Though somehow... he had a feeling that wouldn't be possible.

"Toru wants to help people, right?"

Tia said, smiling cheerfully, stating something simple. But Toru couldn't deny it entirely.

"Most jobs exist because they help someone. And there aren't many people who say they don't want to be useful to anyone."

"Well, some investors might not be useful to anyone at all."

Kujo Reiko laughed elegantly. "Oh ho ho ho."

The butler next to her seemed to find something funny too, chuckling away.

"...Yeah, I'm not well-read enough to get that joke."

"Oh come on, come on. At the end of the day, it's about primary industry, bro."

"I don't get what rich people say."

"Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh! Toru-bro-sama, even if we can't agree on that, we're comrades who fought side by side, aren't we? That's more than enough to deepen our bond!"

"Ah, that means 'fought together,' not 'exchanged blows.' 'Exchanging blows' would mean you punched each other. Ojou's word choice is occasionally stupid."

"...Ah... is that so."

He couldn't bring himself to say "I already know that." The person who'd been called stupid so bluntly by her butler didn't seem to mind, laughing cheerfully, and soon struck up a conversation with Tia about this and that, so he figured it was fine.

The butler Joichiro had said he wasn't stupid, but Toru's self-assessment was that he was a fool.

Like a certain elf had said — a philistine, groveling fool.

...And thinking that kind of thing, before he knew it, they were at the entrance of Sugai Dungeon.

From the fourth floor to the first was a workplace he'd grown familiar with, to the point where he could probably navigate with his eyes closed.

When he could see outside from the entrance, he noticed it was raining.

He hadn't checked the weather forecast. Starting this morning, there'd been one event after another, and he felt like tomorrow and beyond probably wouldn't be much different.

The days of cleaning Sugai Dungeon every day wouldn't come again.

Not that he was particularly disappointed about it.

"Bro, Tia-san, here are umbrellas."

The butler handed him and Tia plastic umbrellas as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and they gratefully accepted. The butler himself was also holding a plastic umbrella as he exited Sugai Dungeon. Kujo Reiko had a proper, suspiciously expensive-looking umbrella, but it didn't bother Toru at all.

If anything, the fact that this sloppy, strange butler genuinely cared for Kujo Reiko was — strange as it was — somehow a little heartwarming.

And so, they stepped outside.

A strange sight greeted them.

First — what looked like stone spikes thrusting from the ground, dozens of them lined up, forming something like a bud in the air. Each spike was as thick as a birch tree. There were narrow gaps between the spikes, and someone seemed to be trapped inside.

A cage of stone, rather than a bud, perhaps.

Then, a little further off, Kagurazaka Chizuru stood wearing a light coat. Despite the rain, she had a sword at her hip. Gonna be a pain to maintain that later, Toru thought idly.

And beyond her — an unfamiliar man and woman.

A rugged-looking man in a leather jacket and hunting cap, and a gloomy woman with long black hair who looked like a ghost.

"—Ah, it's a Demon."

The real ghost — Tia — said, looking up into the air. And as naturally as anything, she grabbed the holy sword still held on her back — she was still wearing the armor — and with the same energy she'd had walking through the dungeon, said:

"They run away quick, so I'm gonna beat 'em up a bit."

And with that, she handed the umbrella she'd been given to Toru without opening it, and dashed off. Literally, toward the stone cage suspended in the air.

...Today's shaping up to be another eventful day, Toru thought.