ch81-ch100 · 082-ch81

Chapter 81

Softly, light was falling.

Branches and leaves of great trees covered the sky. Trees of an absurd height stood in rows — dozens, hundreds, thousands of them — and from the standpoint of someone standing on the ground, the sky was invisible.

Countless branches and leaves, blocking even the sunbeams.

Perhaps because the sun never set, the grass on the ground didn't grow thick; instead, a vast carpet of fallen leaves covered the earth.

By all rights, it should've been so dark that even a single step ahead was uncertain.

And yet — from the branches and leaves covering the sky, fragments of light spilled down.

Softly.

Like fallen leaves. Like fluff. Like pollen. Small lights drifted in the air, falling slowly. Thanks to those countless lights, the world of standing great trees was faintly bright.

Almost — like a 'labyrinth.'

The faint glow of walls and ceiling letting you see about thirty meters ahead. It felt similar to the brightness of that familiar dungeon.

This scenery — he knew it.

This scenery — he didn't know it.

Both feelings rose at once, and Toru was deeply confused. Normally, by now he'd have been cut down by someone, or cutting someone down, or locked in a blade-clash. That was how it should've been. And yet here he was, wandering unsteadily through a forest that was both unknown and known.

He walked for a while. Five minutes, or maybe five hours.

In the unchanging scenery, one change.

At the base of a particularly large tree — someone was huddled up.

With the lifelessness of someone who'd been wandering a desert for three or four days and was about to drop, she hugged both knees to her chest, head between stomach and kneecaps, staring at nothing, motionless.

Golden hair. Tattered light armor.

Why wasn't she holding the Holy Sword?

The moment he thought that, he woke up.

◇◇◇

"...Don't really get it..."

Was it weird to open his eyes and feel put off by the absence of death's aftertaste — Toru wondered, right in the middle ground between waking and drowsiness.

The cursed blade 'Kagetsu' installing combat experience into him through his soul while he slept had become par for the course, but sometimes he dreamed it clearly, sometimes not, and sometimes — like today — he got a weird dream instead. None of it made any sense.

The one huddled at the base of that huge tree was... probably Tia.

If so, then that wasn't really a memory of 'Kagetsu' — maybe it was the doing of the Holy Sword Lightbringer, which was also connected to his soul...

"Eh, whatever."

Nothing to gain from dwelling on it, he decided, and sat up.

Running through today's plans in his head — for now, blank. Tomorrow the car he'd bought was scheduled for delivery, so he had a reason to be home, but today there was nothing in particular.

"Ah, morning, Toru."

Moving into the living room, Tia was sitting and watching TV. She was wearing the loungewear they'd bought at the department store, which was pretty jarring — but thinking about it, her usual fantasy village-girl outfit was the one that should be jarring in the modern world.

"Ah... morning."

The dream's aftertaste still lingering, Toru found himself staring blankly at Tia's golden hair. Probably the same color as the hair of the woman huddled at the base of that tree.

"Yeah... What's up? Did I do something?"

"Nah, nothing. We don't have any plans today, but is there anything you wanna do?"

Asking idly, Tia looked back at him for an instant with a pigeon-staring-down-a-bb-gun face, then crumpled her expression and broke into a loose smile.

"Nothing in particular. If we don't have plans, let's take it easy for once. Ever since I possessed you, Toru, it's just been one thing after another. Normal people in this world take two days off every seven, right?"

"Well, for salaried folks, yeah, roughly."

"Adventurers in the other world took a few days off after coming back from an adventure, too. I don't know how explorers do it here, but..."

"Ah... probably they take days off, right?"

"Then let's take one. I wanna eat that thing. The one you and Mika and Ilseria were eating. Toast with lots of honey on it."

"Heheh," Tia laughed, and Toru gave a lazy shrug.

Better than seeing her huddled like that — this suited her better.

◇◇◇

After breakfast, Tia resumed her TV watching — apparently finding out various things about the modern world was fun — and Toru idly booted his terminal and decided to do a quick sweep of S City, 'Anthem,' and 'Toru-bro.'

First, the S City 'Dungeon Rampage' and the response afterward.

At this stage there was no official statement, but social media was saying a Labyrinth Agency high official had arrived in S City — probably Habaki Ryo. If Sugai Dungeon and Noumi Dungeon were going to be certified S-rank, then it'd require consideration at not just the city level but the prefectural, even national level — but in any case, immediate processing and paperwork were necessary.

After all, if you leave dungeons alone indefinitely, a 'Dungeon Rampage' happens.

So through Soma and Maisaka, Toru had been permitted to do the Sugai Dungeon investigation, and the joint exploration with Kujo Reiko before that too. 'Anthem' was probably doing the Noumi Dungeon investigation, and as the survey progressed, the dungeon would likely open up to general explorers floor by floor starting from the lower ones.

As an aside — or rather, the Sugai Dungeon RTA Tia had pulled the other day was apparently an absurd video on a global scale, and along with the monsters that had appeared in Sugai Dungeon, the 'Holy Sword wielder' had blown up huge.

The SNS account he'd made at Kujo Reiko's urging had countless direct message approval requests piled up, and yesterday's "going to Sugai Dungeon" post had a ton of replies. Followers had grown at a joke pace, and at this point I can't manage this anymore, Toru thought, closing the mobile terminal still logged into SNS.

As a side note, a reply from Ilseria's personal account — "I'll admit you're amazing. Just don't get too full of yourself." — had made him laugh a little. Of course he didn't reply.

"They're calling it an achievement impossible for any S-rank explorer in the world, apparently."

The black dragon instant kill was so absurd it had become suspicious in the other direction. Maybe it was weaker than it looked, maybe Sugai Dungeon's monsters were tuned weak overall. Well — that'd become clear once the dungeon opened and explorers went in. S City, hurry up and do your job.

"Mmm, well, Lightbringer has a dragon-specialty effect, and I put some real effort into cutting that black one. About what you'd expect, right?"

The Holy Sword wielder answered breezily. No posturing, no false modesty. About the level of being praised for buying juice from a vending machine.

Toru kept idly browsing the net for a while and tried searching for Demons too — but naturally, there was no trace of the Demons supposedly hiding in modern society. If anything, the strange part was that they didn't even come up in rumors.

Since the world fused with the other world, there had been various changes on Earth beyond 'labyrinths.' The elven continent appearing northeast of the Australian continent was one; in Japan, an ice dragon had settled in Hokkaido's Daisetsuzan, turning the mountain range into another world, allegedly.

Seeing ghosts in graveyards, fairies in forests, a summer heat haze approaching at extreme speed from a distance and getting eaten by the heat haze, human-faced dogs patrolling in packs at the sea of trees at the foot of Mt. Fuji — if you included urban legends and net lore, the list was endless.

Given that mana existed and monsters did too, the rumors probably contained grains of truth — but honestly, humanity was too busy dealing with 'labyrinths.'

Anything that didn't produce clear damage was probably left alone — that was likely the reality. Once damage did occur, high-rank explorers would be dispatched.

Maybe I should ask the butler about that — was roughly what he was thinking when noon arrived. There was a pack of instant bagged noodles, so he casually chopped some green onion and stir-fried it in sesame oil, sliced bacon, left the green-onion-flavored oil in the pan, seared the bacon, hit it with soy sauce to char, and threw the whole thing on top of soy-sauce ramen as a topping.

"Mm! Delicious! Mmheheheh! This world is amazing, isn't it."

Eating the noodles without making noise, Tia said something like that. Toru slurped his own noodles loudly and tilted his head with a "don't really get it."

"After all, the food here has all been delicious so far. This stuff we're eating now — it's probably not a fancy food, is it. There's no struggle for water either, and you can take a bath every day. You can watch TV, and if you go online you can communicate with people all over the world. Even royalty in the other world didn't live this luxuriously."

"Civilization gap, huh."

"Culture too. Especially here in Japan, there's basically no sense of that 'feudal system' thing, is there. Royalty over there would casually just go 'you, death penalty' like it was nothing."

"...Sounds like they'd get revolution'd real quick."

If it was a world where powerful people like explorers existed, even more so. That was the intent behind his remark, but Tia gave a wry smile, smoothly slurped the noodles into her mouth, chewed slowly, and then shook her head.

"That's exactly why powerholders kept strong people on a leash. Taking family or hometown as hostages, promising them luxuries, granting them honors. Here, they probably hide that kind of thing skillfully — and if there's a hostage, it's the entire culture, maybe."

"...?"

He didn't get it. At Toru's honest head-tilt, Tia chewed the bacon she'd apparently been saving for last, swallowed, and went on.

"I saw it on TV — in a faraway country called Oshu, they made, like, a nation of explorers, right? That makes sense — when there's ridiculous money flowing around, ridiculous power, and you can't throw your weight around, that's a lie. And actually, when they try, society crumbles. The things ordinary people are propping up disappear."

Infrastructure, culture, that kind of thing.

Strictly speaking, not so much "disappear" as the cost goes up — and those who can't take it leave. No matter how incredible an explorer you are, without the owners, managers, and part-timers at a convenience store, you can't buy a pastry bread in the middle of the night. You need the bread factory too.

"They chose it. TV works. Anime exists. Manga — I haven't read any yet, but there are stories in text, and there are comedy shows, right. You can buy bread or juice at a convenience store at night. At a department store you can eat katsudon, ramen. The explorers in this country decided to pay the cost of maintaining that kind of society."

If you don't like it, you can go to the explorer nation and naturalize.

That country doesn't have its own anime, manga, or variety shows, and buying cup noodles on a whim in the middle of the night would probably be tough — but you could just import them with the ridiculous money the labyrinth produces. No idea how much inflation that'd cause, though.

"Ah... having someone like Soma-san up top might be the salvation."

And — Toru also thought — that wouldn't save Soma Kengo himself.

The S-rank 'Hunter' explorer who'd flatly said he had no one he wanted to protect.

And yet that man had seemed to labor to maintain society.

"Well, but there's plenty of idiots and dangerous types mixed in too, I bet."

Tia said it as a matter of course, without a sliver of expectation.

Unfortunately, Toru agreed.

◇◇◇

In the end, that was how they frittered away the whole day.

Occasional noises from downstairs were probably Kujo Reiko and her crew moving in. A little past noon, Kawai Sakiho sent word: "I've linked up with Azumaya-san. If anything comes up, I'm on the floor below." But there was nothing in particular. Strictly speaking, Toru should contact the rundown apartment's landlord about renting the next unit over, but he figured tomorrow was fine. He'd always been heavy about contracts and the like.

Tia said she wanted to watch an anime movie, so for the first time in a while he fired up the DVD player, and they watched together — a story about sisters who move to the countryside and meet a troll. Apparently she found it interesting in her own way, and afterward Tia was as hyper as a wound-up dog, but eh, not bad, Toru thought. Maybe he'd gotten used to it.

"No but really, it was amazing! I've seen plays, or operas, or whatever — totally different! People here really are amazing!"

"...Nah, your side probably had some seriously amazing theater too, and even here, creators who can genuinely move people — there probably aren't that many, I'd guess."

"So what we just watched was super first-rate?"

"Ah... yeah, pretty sure. Gets huge praise from overseas too."

"That's amazing in its own way. On an ordinary day, on a whim, you can sit in your own home and take in something super first-rate. I wanna see more, too."

"Invite Mika over next time and watch together. Probably make Kujo-san happy if you invited her too. Watch some duds too, not just the hits."

"Can you tell before you watch?"

"You learn to spot landmines."

And so on and so forth.

By the time they'd done all that, the sun was going down, and the edge of the sky had started to redden. Now that he thought about it, the fridge situation was iffy — change of clothes, change of plans, let's go shopping, he decided, and got changed. The fact that his proper clothes were increasingly explorer-grade was a mildly amusing little detail, and he let out a meaningless wry smile.

No car, so it'd be on foot — but for today, that was fine.

Walking a former hero as wound-up as a dog wasn't bad either.

— Pururururu,

The mobile terminal announced a call.

Checking the screen — 'Shirazawa Kana.'

"Hello. Shirazawa? What's up?"

She was an ex-girlfriend he'd caught up with only recently, but she wasn't the kind of woman to pushily call without reason. Which meant she had something. And — something urgent.

The voice of Shirazawa Kana on the other end of the terminal was a hundred times more desperate than he'd expected.

『Hayasaka-kun... I'm sorry! Noumi Dungeon, the third floor! A human turned into a beast-like monster, and it's attacking us! Help!』

Snap — a switch flipped in his head.

"On my way."

He said only that and cut the call. Confirming the magic bag at his waist, heading to the entryway and pulling on his explorer boots, he looked for Tia — and there was the hero, already at the front door in her light armor, Holy Sword fixed at the small of her back.

"You're in a hurry, right?! Get on, Toru! Where to?!"

The story moving this fast was, no doubt, because she was used to emergencies.

Cheerful small talk turning into combat two seconds later, or a person you'd spoken to a day ago being dead the next — that kind of thing must have happened.

Being saved by that fact didn't feel great.

But right now, no extra thoughts.

"Yeah — hurry. Noumi Dungeon."

Saying that, he placed one foot on the Holy Sword Tia held at her back, and gripped the armor hook that held the blade with one hand. A more unstable position than last time, but he had the confidence it'd be fine now. He'd recently done what was probably the world's first power-leveling, and his soul had grown considerably more accustomed to 'Kagetsu.'

"Heading to Noumi Dungeon now! Probably an emergency! Situation unknown, so figure it out somehow! Here we go!"

He shouted that for the apartment residents — especially the ones who'd just moved in yesterday. Right, Kawai Sakiho should be at the maid's place too.

— Bwump,

And at that point in the thought, the world lagged.

Leaping past the speed of sound, finding a nearby foothold, leaping again — repeating that. Out of the rundown apartment, onto the prefectural road in a flash. Cutting through the mountains, just like that one time, straight to the destination.

"The person on the phone! That person you were talking to at the department store?!"

Tia said while bouncing like a ricochet. The scenery flew past at a horrifying speed, but Toru didn't feel as much fear as before. He even had the leeway to loosen his knees when Tia kicked off the next foothold, bracing for the impact.

"Yeah, but you were out shopping. How'd you know?"

"I can sense the presence of people nearby. I could tell someone was talking to you, Toru — probably an acquaintance, seemed pretty friendly, was my read on it."

"So you were considerate and held back from coming back faster?"

"Nah. I was just shopping normally. More importantly, Toru — if you've got leeway, pull out the wooden sword and cut the air for me? I can go a bit faster."

"You ask for hard things."

"I'm asking because it looks like you can."

"Oh, right."

He clicked his tongue without much feeling, pulled the wooden sword from the magic bag, and held it in one hand. The instant Tia kicked off the next foothold — the split second the wall of air and Tia's mana barrier collided — he thrust the tip of the wooden sword forward and poured mana in.

For just a moment — zero air resistance.

A single instant while moving beyond the speed of sound. It bought a considerable distance. Repeat this, and they'd arrive faster than he thought.

"That's it, that's the rhythm! Your friend's in trouble, right?! Let's hurry!"

Tia's attitude, with nothing extra to it, felt a little bit like salvation.

Whether he panicked, grew irritated, or raged — in the end, he could only do what he could do.

She'd said — help.

Three years ago, he hadn't been able to hear those words. His family, like so many other victims, hadn't been able to contact anyone — caught up in the 'Dungeon Rampage.'

He'd wanted to save them. There was no way he could. He hadn't had the recklessness to throw himself into the scene knowing it was impossible. He hadn't been able to believe, even slightly, in miracles, or hidden talents blooming, or someone conveniently stepping in.

This time.

This time, for sure.

Slashing through the wall of air with mana, he thought something like that.