ch41-ch60 · 054-ch53

Chapter 53

Sasamori Takeshi was tasting what could fairly be called the first real defeat of his life.

Restrained in the basement of some unknown building, he'd been subjected to interrogation — torture, really — by some brat called an S-rank explorer. Any word that displeased his captor was met with hellish torment. Experiencing physical pain was an extremely rare event in Sasamori Takeshi's life.

He didn't even remember being hit by his parents.

At worst, he'd slipped on some stairs in high school and broken a bone. Or when the Labyrinth Department chief had assaulted him at the meeting the other day — it had been so sudden that surprise outweighed the pain. It had certainly hurt, but it had only slightly wounded Sasamori's pride.

But this — he'd been kicked without mercy just for complaining a little.

With enough force to stop his breath and force groans from his mouth.

If that brat Soma was enjoying the sadism, maybe he could have accepted it as some kind of perversion. He could have told himself he'd been caught by an incomprehensible abnormal, escaping into a form of denial that it wasn't his fault.

But that man — he'd looked thoroughly bored about it.

Even as he kicked Sasamori's stomach, kicked his shins, slapped his cheeks, his demeanor never shifted from that flat, matter-of-fact tone. Sasamori recognized that attitude. It was the face of someone doing a job everyone hated because "it's work." As a politician, Sasamori had been careful to strongly appreciate such people. Because he couldn't afford to have them quit.

If he applied that logic to explorers, he should have treated them the same way... but that was different. Those morons kept flooding in, gleefully selling their magic cores and labyrinth produce at prices capped by the state.

How many times had he heard from supporters: "My child wants to become an explorer..." Not once or twice. Even ten or twenty wouldn't cover it.

Why anyone would want to be a worker ant like that was beyond Sasamori Takeshi.

Back when the world had merged with the other world at the end of the last century, and during the Chain Dungeon Rampages in the early years of this century — always standing at the front lines of the damage were those idiot explorers with their incomprehensible powers.

Sasamori's friends from when he was young — so many, so many of them had died. He thought they were incredible fools. What reason did they have to risk their lives for others?

Lives — those are things you let others risk for you.

Harsh, dangerous, unpleasant — there were plenty of jobs like that.

Sasamori had always paid minimum respect to jobs nobody wanted to do. Because if no one did them, you'd be in trouble. Sewage treatment, specialized construction, certain factory work, agriculture and livestock — those too. Those were often his supporters, and expressing appreciation for jobs Sasamori himself would never want to do — and that few wanted to do, at least in his perception — had a great cost-benefit ratio. That was a rule of thumb.

Without any genuine feeling, just showing appreciation made them happy.

People were weak to gratitude.

Another rule of thumb. Especially gratitude from the strong — the weak were delighted by it. Probably because no one ever thanked them otherwise, or because those in positions of power ignored them. An excellent target for a politician. A little praise bought support.

So — whether that was the right word or not — even now, Sasamori Takeshi didn't think his views were in any way wrong.

Even with his hands bound behind his back around a pipe running along the wall. Even after being tortured in that state, beaten, and left to suffer. Nothing had changed his thinking.

Time had passed since then, and the mortality rate for explorers had apparently dropped considerably. But Sasamori's perception remained exactly the same.

Those idiot explorers were society's worker ants.

It was just — he did think — that he had failed.

◇◇◇

The people who'd gathered in the basement each left in their own time, and only the manager of that idol explorer group — Hamamatsu Nanami — was left behind in the basement.

Not that anyone was going to greet the furniture, of course. Everyone left the basement treating Sasamori as a non-entity. As for Hamamatsu, who remained, she confirmed everyone was gone, let out a small sigh, and — likewise treating Sasamori as a non-entity — sat down on a folding chair against the wall and started staring at her mobile device.

Killing time, presumably.

Sasamori couldn't really understand the mentality of wasting time staring at a small screen, but now that they could connect to networks through magical communication, it was probably an optimal device for wasting time.

"...Hamamatsu, was it? Do you even understand what's going to happen after this...?"

He hadn't expected anything, but perhaps it was the relief of that violent man Soma leaving that made him blurt it out.

But Hamamatsu didn't move her gaze from her mobile device for even an instant, simply acting as if Sasamori's words didn't exist. An attitude that said he wasn't even worth the effort of ignoring.

Kuku ku — he couldn't help but feel ridiculous, and a small laugh escaped from deep in his gut.

Until just the other day, he'd been on the side that measured and determined others' worth. Now he was being dismissed as worthless and ignored by a woman barely in her mid-twenties.

"What are you laughing at? You're the one who doesn't get what's going to happen."

Hamamatsu said in a cold voice.

Unlike Soma, who'd been utterly dispassionate, her voice carried contempt, anger, and ridicule meant to provoke Sasamori.

"What is there to get? At this point, worst case is the death penalty. If not that, they'll use me as bait to catch that Cabinet Intelligence man. No, maybe the fishing's already started? Honestly, this is why I hate explorers."

"Thanks to the people you look down on as 'worker ants,' most of the world's energy problems have been solved, magical technology has advanced, and society has become more convenient. What have you ever done besides extort money from others?"

"You people don't grow rice or raise livestock. Did you know? Apparently a retired explorer got a job at a farm. He kept saying 'this kind of work is nothing' and quit in less than six months. He could easily handle the labor that men and women in their sixties do while their whole bodies ache, but he quit because it was 'boring.'"

"That's the textbook definition of missing the forest for the trees. There are countless examples of retired explorers contributing to society. You just look down on things you don't understand. You know what that's called? An entitled old fool."

At the deliberate condescension, Sasamori could only laugh, his throat vibrating.

Just as he thought — this woman had a personal grudge.

All the others — the elf from the other world, the idol explorers, the dispatched S-rank explorer and the gloomy woman, the Labyrinth Department chief and his female subordinate — none of them had even registered Sasamori Takeshi in their field of vision. But Hamamatsu Nanami — this woman alone was making an effort to keep him out of her sight.

"You're the only one here who smells like the gutter."

He said it with a chuckle.

Sasamori Takeshi had no political ideology. In truth, he didn't even want more money than necessary. A stable position among the powerful — that was all Sasamori desired. For that, he'd go along with his supporters' nonsense, promising to leave it to him. After all, it wasn't Sasamori who'd actually do the work anyway.

And at the same time, he felt absolutely no pangs of conscience about crushing anyone who threatened that security. He had a decent knack for sensing people's "weak points they didn't want poked." He couldn't fight, but he was good at tearing others down.

He understood now that such a position had already vanished.

That dimly lit man's honeyed words had been the turning point. If not for that, he might have lost his position and trust, but at least he could have held onto his money and retired somewhere far away. Not that he knew what he'd do somewhere far away, though.

It was too late. That being the case, he could no longer tear others down.

All Sasamori could do was — trip them up.

"...What did you say?"

As expected, Hamamatsu Nanami took the cheap bait, put her mobile device back in her suit's inner pocket, and turned to face Sasamori.

Click. Her pumps struck the basement concrete as she stepped closer, one step at a time. As a former B-rank explorer, strangling an ordinary person to death would be trivial to her.

"I said it smells like the gutter. I know it well. The smell of a loser who blames everything else and does nothing himself. I've seen those types yapping in the distance for years. They have plenty of energy to curse, but no intention of getting up and moving themselves. They scream that this is the right argument, but they keep running from debate."

"...Living in some sludge-like place, and you can recognize the gutter smell? Spare me the joke. Don't open that gutter-stinking mouth of yours, all right?"

Click. Click. The sound came closer.

Now she was within arm's reach.

Sasamori recognized the monster before him as a young woman her age, and laughed again.

"I couldn't tell in that meeting room, but I can now. That man in the hat didn't have that smell. He's doing it as a job. The little girl leader of the explorer team didn't have it either. I heard she was gathered up by the state in middle school and educated as an explorer. How pitiful. Never being able to hold hands with a boy you like, never wasting time on trivial talk with close friends — just a 'worker ant.'"

"Don't speak of humanity's hope with that gutter-stinking mouth."

Her eyes narrowed. The air grew thin, as if it might become impossible to breathe. A tension like tightly wound steel wires creaking under strain.

He'd made her angry.

At the fact that he'd made her angry, Sasamori laughed again.

"Hamamatsu Nanami. Former B-rank explorer, was it? You had your fun little youth, chose to be a 'worker ant' explorer of your own free will, failed due to your own actions, and retired — that's about it, right? You must have reached B-rank when you were younger. And yet you're working as a manager for a national project's idol explorers. Shouldn't you have something you need to accomplish? You should have power. So why —"

— don't you do it yourself?

He felt he'd pulled off the finest laugh of his career. He'd said nothing but made-up nonsense based on imagination to someone he knew nothing about... and yet she was this angry.

A crashing sound — BAGIN!

For a moment, he couldn't understand what had happened. Because Hamamatsu Nanami, whom he'd been looking at, appeared not to have moved an inch from where she stood.

A full second or more passed before he realized his left shoulder had been crushed.

"——Gwah, ah, gah...!"

It felt like his shoulder bone had been crushed in a massive vise. Since his hands were cuffed behind his back around the pipe, he couldn't even find a position to ease the pain. He managed to move his neck and confirm his left shoulder with just his eyes — sure enough, it was crushed.

There was no bleeding. But it was a fatally irreparable kind of damage.

"Hee — hee hee hee hee! Ah, hee hee hee hee!"

He laughed. He sneered at her.

No matter how grand a front she put up, this woman's true nature was the same as the powerless masses. She had something she believed was 'good,' but decided she couldn't achieve it herself and made others do it. Worse, she deluded herself into thinking that by merely assisting those she'd pushed forward, she was accomplishing something herself. A coward.

"Shut up. What would you know? A piece of trash who's only ever looked down on others from a safe position — don't act like you know anything. Do you understand how many people almost died because of your self-preservation? No — you can say it because you don't understand. That kind of mouth — you don't need it, do you?"

Hamamatsu's lips curled into a grin, and Sasamori just laughed — "hee hee hee." Either way, there was no future left in his life. If so, dying at this gutter-smelling woman's hands would be better. Far better than being condemned by something clean and righteous.

The toes of his right foot were crushed. Next, his left knee. He couldn't stand, but the handcuffs prevented him from sitting. His crushed left shoulder screamed in agony, but still Sasamori laughed.

If you wanted to call it desperate abandon, then so be it.

Since nothing could be done anymore, he wanted to tear others down for his own satisfaction, not for safety, at the very end. If the target was this girl who'd caused his downfall, all the better. Fall. Tumble. Plunge. This far.

"——Goodness, what a terrible state this is."

A clear baritone voice.

The voice of an observer utterly out of place in this basement space filled with negative emotions and bloodlust. He hadn't noticed the sound of the door opening, but he couldn't fail to notice that voice.

"Y-y-you... are..."

"My, my. Quite an entertaining situation you've got here, Assembly Member Sasamori."

The man who called himself part of the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office.

The dimly lit man who'd given Sasamori Takeshi the labyrinth-erasing stone.

"...How did you know this location?"

With a voice and attitude far colder than when she'd been torturing Sasamori, Hamamatsu turned toward the basement entrance. She lowered her center of gravity slightly and swayed her loosely open hands a little — perhaps an explorer's combat stance.

But the man in the dark gray suit, as if unaware of the tension coursing through the room, wore a faint smile and leisurely removed his bowler hat — only for the hat to vanish like a magic trick.

The cane he leaned on with his left hand made a modest tap.

As always... his face was somehow unmemorable. It was well-formed, but when asked what kind of well-formed, it was hard to describe.

"How? Obviously because I've been watching the whole time. From when you captured Assembly Member Sasamori at the Kamioka Dungeon entrance, to returning to the hotel, to transporting him from the hotel to this building... why did you think no one was watching?"

A quiet chuckle was audible... but it was impossible to tell if he was actually laughing or not.

Whether that eeriness triggered her wariness, Hamamatsu retreated — barely, less than a half-step.

"Hamamatsu Nanami-san. Labyrinth Agency employee. Manager of A-rank explorer clan Anthem. Former B-rank explorer. The clan you belonged to dissolved ten years ago. Ah, that was back when there were still no regulations on minor explorers, wasn't it? The reason for the dissolution was the loss of the clan leader in a certain accident."

Tap, tap, tap — the cane sounded.

With a gait that made the cane — which he shouldn't need at that pace — deliberately striking the ground, the approaching man's figure was... subtly blurring.

No — it was the opposite.

Something that had been blurring was disappearing.

Like a mosaic clearing.

The color of the man's unmemorable face — no, his skin itself — was an unnaturally pale purple. He finally noticed.

He wasn't... human?

"Haven't you realized yet? I am the 'culprit.' Because of me, your precious, precious clan leader died. Ah, no, explorers are self-reliant, aren't they? My apologies. Your precious clan leader died because he was weak."

The next instant.

Like a projectile fired from a catapult, Hamamatsu Nanami charged the pale purple man, and before a moment could pass, she was deflected and slammed into the wall on the opposite side of the basement.

Even though she'd crashed with enough force to break through the concrete wall, Hamamatsu Nanami immediately burst out from the wall she'd embedded herself in, glaring at the pale purple man with a killing intent so intense it made Sasamori want to vomit.

Zizi zi — the air around Hamamatsu seemed to distort...

In her hands, which should have been empty, gleaming short swords — no, masses of light shaped like short swords — were grasped.

"I will kill you. I will absolutely kill you."

At that declaration, like a wild beast that had learned speech, the pale purple man returned a clear smile.

"Oh my, if that's your intention, shouldn't you have done something before spitting out gutter-stinking words? That's why you let your comrades die, Nanami-chan."

He'd hit a weak point, Sasamori recognized.

Beyond that, he understood nothing else.