ch61-ch80 · 078-ch77

Chapter 77

— Ding-dong.

The chime rang, so Toru opened the front door to find a maid standing there. So Toru, for the time being, gently closed the door.

It was nearly evening now, and the Sonoyama mother and daughter had already gone back to the apartment next door. Kawai Sakiho and Kujo Reiko were still at Toru's place, and the three of them — including Tia — seemed to be having a lively conversation. Incidentally, Soma and Maisaka, who were supposed to have left briskly, had noticed they'd forgotten the rental car thirty minutes later, came back once, and then left in the rental car.

— Ding-dong.

The chime rang again, so Toru had no choice but to open the front door.

Beyond the open door, sure enough, the maid was standing there, and diagonally behind her was a black-suited butler waving his hand with a loose grin.

"How do you do. I am Azumaya Marika. By order of Reiko-ojou-sama, I shall be assuming the role of monitoring and auditing Kawai Sakiho-sama. Please do remember me."

"Yo. Sorry for bein' late. The chat with the family head ran long... well, got a decent haul out of it one way or another."

The maid — Azumaya Marika — bowing properly with a clean greeting, and the butler waving casually while blurting out something rude, made for quite the contrast.

"Ah... right. Kawai-san's still in the room, so please take care of her. And, well, I can't offer much in the way of hospitality, but go ahead."

"Nah nah. Hospitality is our job, so don't worry about that. More importantly, thanks a ton for watching over Ojou. Saw the stream too. Hahaha. Tia-san's seriously insane. Even Ojou was fired up."

Saying that, the butler let himself in like he owned the place, while the maid smoothly slipped off her boots, lined up the shoes at the entrance, gave another bow, and didn't raise her head until Toru moved. Lot of contrast there, Toru thought, somewhat impressed.

Anyway, he couldn't leave a maid bowing forever, so he headed to the living room. The butler had already relocated to the kitchen and was putting a kettle on. He'd naturally brought tea leaves and teaware, of course.

Once she'd confirmed Toru was moving, Azumaya Marika also lifted her head and followed him into the living room — and only then did Toru notice she was short. About a touch taller than Ilseria, maybe. Her manner was polished, and she was probably an explorer too. Going by her air, somewhere from upper C-rank to lower B-rank.

"My, so Marika has arrived. Please ensure you cause no discourtesy to anyone present."

"But of course, Ojou-sama. Once more — I am Kujo Reiko-sama's maid, Azumaya Marika. I have hastened here to serve as the monitoring and auditing officer for Kawai Sakiho-sama."

Coming atcha, hastening over, genuinely a lot of "comings" — Toru thought something stupid in his head, but held back from letting it slip out.

The reunion pleasantries and the first-time introductions flowed past quickly, and once the butler had poured black tea for everyone, they got to the main topic.

"As you know, we left Ojou in Toru-bro's care and went to have a word — this and that — with the Kujo family head. Meaning Ojou's father. The main subject was the 'Demons.'"

The other day, they'd done the Sugai Dungeon exploration led by Kujo Reiko, and when they'd returned to the dungeon entrance, they'd encountered Lugardo, restrained by Soma Kengo's magic.

That Lugardo had gotten beaten up by Tia, and Maisaka Risa's 'special ability' had guaranteed he wasn't hostile to humanity — but in the process, they'd learned that a race called Demons had come to this world from the other world, and that fact had been kept secret from at least the general public up to the present day.

At the very least, Toru hadn't known about Demons. Neither had Soma, Maisaka, or Kagurazaka Chizuru. Only Tia had known — because in her previous life, before the world fused with Earth, she'd fought Demons in the other world. Needless to say, Tia hadn't known Demons existed in this world either.

This world and the other world had fused a quarter of a century ago.

Which meant the Demons had been hiding that entire time.

But — without anyone's help?

That was a little hard to believe.

"Cutting to the conclusion, it sounds like a certain faction in the political world has been sheltering them. That said, not the ruling party or the opposition or anything like that — it's more the 'houses' that exist behind those front-stage players. The Kujo house is, well, backside-ish too, I guess."

In this case, picture the Kujo house — which holds the Kujo zaibatsu — being in the back, and companies like NINELINE, which sells explorer gear, being in the front. Roughly that kind of feel.

"Explaining for Toru-bro's benefit here — what's common to the companies that rose to prominence after the 'World Fusion,' and the 'houses' behind them, is that the question of 'how many useful other-worlders could you secure' was huge."

"Ah... yeah, that's probably true."

He'd never thought about it until it was pointed out — it was too far removed from his own life — but he had to admit that was surely the case.

Even just looking at explorer gear, creating it without the knowledge of other-worlders would've been extremely difficult. If you were making weapons wrapped in mana using labyrinth produce, having the know-how obviously made it easier.

"For example, the magic bag — a must-have for modern explorers — is standardized based on other-worlder knowledge. The method was released publicly because it was too useful to keep hidden, but it reproduces the other-world technique of weaving spatial magic into bags and pouches using rare drops from monsters that use spatial magic in labyrinths."

According to the butler, this 'method' wasn't particularly rare to other-worlders, and part of the reason it had been opened up was that no single house that had secured other-worlders could monopolize it. Conversely, techniques with high uniqueness were easily monopolized, and it was easier to patent them and turn them into money too.

"So — the 'Demons' in question have been kept secret up to the present day. Even the family head had only enough information to vaguely suspect something. It seems there are 'houses' — or rather, 'factions,' which are clusters of houses — that are holding special other-worlders."

"You mean they're using the Demons?"

The one raising the question mark was Tia, and no like or dislike seemed to be in it. Maybe resignation toward the concept of power.

A person in power might well do that much.

Whether in the other world, or this one.

"Probably so. From the Demons' side too, it seems they want to keep hidden the fact that they're Demons, so it's a convergence of interests. Which house is holding what kind of other-worlder — that kind of thing is kept secret whenever it can be, naturally. Whether or not it's a Demon — if you didn't even know a race called Demons existed, you'd never come up with it. The family head apparently had only guessed along the lines of 'maybe they've secured some unknown race.'"

This part was probably a given.

The 'houses' that managed to secure useful other-worlders early had gained an advantage after the World Fusion. Used that advantage to rise —

Needless to say, shortly after the 'World Fusion' came the era of the 'Chain Dungeon Rampage,' so it wasn't as if everyone who gained an advantage rode out the storm. Without luck or strength, they were probably absorbed into some other house or faction.

"Come to think of it, the old dwarf at Arai Sheet Metal said he didn't know anything about the Guidolin Kingdom, so... people from over there probably don't know much about Demons either, huh?"

Tia murmured.

Right, he hadn't shown his face at Arai Sheet Metal in a while, Toru thought, picturing the bearded dwarf. He started thinking about getting the car modified once it was delivered, but decided to set that aside for now.

"The Guidolin Kingdom — you say?"

The one who tilted her head carefully was Kujo Reiko. The butler, seeming to understand that returning the question to Tia wasn't his role, wore a satisfied look that his master had voiced the question.

"Um, it's the country I belonged to in the 'other world,' from this world's perspective. By order of the country, I fought the king of the Demons — the Demon King — and defeated him. According to the old dwarf, it had collapsed over two hundred years before the World Fusion."

"So Tia-sama was a Hero."

"I've heard that one a lot. Hero-sama, Brave-sama, Holy Sword's Chosen-sama... stuff like that. But in the end, I was just a kid who happened to pick up Lightbringer, got grabbed by some important people, and got used however they pleased."

A clear wry smile formed on Tia's face, and no one said a thing.

Of course Toru didn't have any words he should be saying either.

"Very well. Let's put things in order."

The butler slid in smoothly. Not because he couldn't read the room, but because he could. If there was nothing to say, then there was nothing to say.

"Ah, sorry. Go on."

"Nah nah, the pleasure's mine. Factoring in Tia-san's story, the Demons who lost their Demon King must've had a small number surviving in hiding... and two hundred years later, the other-worlders had completely forgotten the Demons even existed — that's the shape of it, yeah?"

"Ah... Lugardo did say something like that. Oh, forgot to mention — I exchanged contacts with that Demon who was getting beaten up back there, and we've got a kinda-sorta cooperative relationship now."

"Heh. Nice."

The butler let out a whistle. Glancing sideways, Azumaya Marika was seated diagonally behind Kujo Reiko in formal seiza, freezing the butler with an extremely cold glare, but the man himself wasn't even looking at the maid.

"In other words, most of the other-worlders who came here didn't know about the Demons. There's a faction that secured the Demons who came over here. Probably, they thought they were securing other-worlders, and it just so happened they were Demons. And — among those Demons, there were some who split off. Gilgeil, was it?"

The butler's gaze flicked to his master for a moment.

Looked like they'd shared information. Naturally. It'd be a problem if they hadn't. It wasn't as if they'd asked Kujo Reiko to keep her mouth shut.

"Pulling out the two Demons we caught in today's fishing, the remaining 'Gilgeil faction' comes to five, Gilgeil included."

Tia looked at Toru as if to say 'ta-da,' but whether being able to do addition was worth celebrating was debatable.

"Call the faction that first took in the Demons 'A.' The Gilgeil faction split off from A. It's hard to imagine they're operating entirely on their own, so there's probably a house or faction — call it 'B' — that's reached a cooperative or collaborative relationship with the Gilgeil faction."

"Ah... so A and B are hostile, or B is betraying A. Something like that."

"Probably something like that."

"Which means —"

The Gilgeil faction's rampage in S City this time was, of course, known to B. There was even a possibility it was B's intention. Even if it wasn't, it must not have worked against B's interests.

Conversely — the 'Dungeon Rampage' that followed the Kamioka Dungeon disappearance was probably inconvenient for A.

"— If we think in terms of gains and losses... we can narrow down A and B?"

A 'Dungeon Rampage' happening in S City is fine by them. Because that hurts A. When A hurts, B is happy. However many citizens die, they don't care...

It was an ugly conversation.

Ugly enough to boil tea with bile.

"Ooh, Toru-bro's got a sharp head on him, as expected. The Kujo side will look into that area, so we can play guessing games but we don't gotta play detective."

"Ah... yeah, true."

Being told about powerful figures pulling the front from the back of society — honestly, Toru had nothing but trouble to derive from that. If he followed some tail and happened to hit the main body, he figured he'd just smash it, but he had no intention of walking around hunting countless tails.

Eventually, he'd probably run into them — he had that premonition, though.

◇◇◇

The tea that had gone cold at some point was, this time, naturally re-poured by the maid and distributed to everyone, and the butler made an exaggerated "zzz" slurping noise as he drank his, ignored the maid's cold glare, then paused for a beat with "now then" and continued.

"That's the situation report and the cleanup. From here, it's about what comes next. First, Ojou — wanna stay in S City for a while?"

"Naturally. If Joichiro watched the stream, then you saw the state of Sugai Dungeon. A training ground that convenient doesn't come along often!"

Kujo Reiko, fist clenched and half-rising from her seat, was met with the butler's "whoa, whoa" gesture — both hands spread, wry smile — and then he turned only his face toward Toru.

"Ah, explaining for Toru-bro — that kind of dungeon where the monster rank steadily climbs as you go down is pretty rare. When a hunting ground is good, it gets super crowded, and entering the dungeon tends to get restricted."

"Restricted?"

"Well, if you don't hunt monsters, the chance of a 'Dungeon Rampage' goes up — but if you over-hunt and monsters thin out, then the chance of mutation goes up."

"It's not something one considers in normal exploration, of course, but... how should I put it... once you start subjugating them in large numbers, even monsters other than bosses have reduced spawn rates. And if you keep subjugating past that, they say the labyrinth might literally dry up. The most famous example is the Shinjuku Dungeon."

""Heh.""

Toru and Tia's reactions overlapped.

Kujo Reiko let out a small smile at this, and continued.

"So, since the mutated Sugai Dungeon and Noumi Dungeon aren't open to general explorers yet, they're perfect for training. Today, with Tia-sama carrying me, we likely reached near the deepest layer, but I'm the type who normally updates floors steadily and methodically on my own."

"Which is why I got in touch with the landlord of this apartment building. Believe it or not, this place has four empty units. Heard Toru-bro wanted to secure the empty unit on the opposite side from the cat family, so I went ahead and locked down the corner room on the second floor, plus two empty units on the first floor."

"...Huh?"

The story moved so fast it took him a moment to grasp it.

And he wasn't the only one — Kujo Reiko was also blinking with rounded eyes, and Kawai Sakiho, who'd been erasing her presence in the corner of the room, had the same rounded eyes. Tia tilted her head with a "don't really get it" look, but whatever.

"From now on, we're neighbors for a while. Besides Azumaya's little lady here, I brought three nameless black suits, so I'll put them on apartment security and odd jobs. They're not as strong as me or Ojou, obviously, but bear with us on that."

"...I mean, 'bear with us' or whatever, but I don't have any authority over any of this..."

Their action capacity was so far beyond an ordinary person's that Toru felt like he might catch a cold of the soul.

But — thinking about it, someone this rich would treat the money spent renting or vacating units as no more than a trifle. Lock it down for now. If we don't use it, oh well. Probably that kind of sensibility.

"In any case, Marika will be monitoring and auditing Kawai-sama, so we did need to secure lodging regardless. Under the guise of Sugai Dungeon investigation, we can get permission from the Labyrinth Agency too... I see, as expected of Joichiro!"

"Ohohoho! — A grand laugh. This time it felt a half-tone higher.

"So yeah, take care of us for a while. Toru-bro, Tia-san, Kawai-san."

"Once more, a pleasure to be in your care!"

"I will handle any miscellaneous daily tasks upon your request, so please do not hesitate to ask. Once more — I am Azumaya Marika. A pleasure."

So that was the situation.

After thinking it over briefly, Toru gave a vague shrug and let out a "Haa," and nodded.

"Ah... well... guess we'll be in your care."