ch81-ch100 · 086-ch85

Chapter 85

Sadoyama Koji was tired.

Just the other day, smoking leisurely in the airport parking lot felt like an age ago — problems had piled on top of problems, one after another, and on top of that, hardly any of them were things Sadoyama was even allowed to handle on his own judgment. He'd think, then stop dumping them in front of me, but since his desk was apparently just a place to set things down for now, nothing could be done about it.

For instance, Habaki Ryo.

Labyrinth Agency Labyrinth Inspector. He hadn't come to S City as scheduled, and once he did show up, he'd slipped into the city on his own and done whatever he pleased. Of course, he wasn't in any position where he'd need to obtain Sadoyama's permission for anything — but when Sadoyama heard afterwards that he'd "had a run-in with Hayasaka Toru, then dogeza'd and been forgiven," his honest thought was that the man should've just died. Though it'd have been a hassle if he actually had.

For instance, Kujo Reiko.

There wasn't much Sadoyama himself felt about her — but the influence she brought with her was anything but ordinary. Especially once she'd gone into a Sugai Dungeon exploration together with Hayasaka Toru, inquiries from explorers in the city saying "let us in too" had exploded.

True — the mutated labyrinth had to be investigated.

But — as safely as possible.

This wasn't a simulation game; he couldn't just casually throw human resources in and lose them. And at the same time, the reality was that throwing in human resources was all he could do. Who to entrust with as much preliminary investigation as possible, and how — that was the headache.

For instance, the S-rank explorer clan 'Slayer.'

Simply put, they were delayed. Thanks to that, the A-rank idol explorer clan 'Anthem' was still staying on in S City — and, probably without the girls even realizing it, that was piling pressure onto Sadoyama. There were quite a few explorers and powerful figures trying to get close to 'Anthem,' and shutting them all out took a fair bit of work.

And — the manager of that very 'Anthem.'

Sadoyama Koji's former junior, Hamamatsu Nanami.

She had barged into Sadoyama's place and was endlessly drinking, wallowing in her own misery.

When they'd reunited after so long, he'd had this moment of thinking, we've both aged, and she's grown into a proper national civil servant — and he wanted that moment back.

She hadn't grown at all.

It was like watching a basketball player who'd unilaterally decided to go study abroad in America — but had she just gone and died in a ditch somewhere of her own accord, he could've grieved her properly. Since she'd instead barged into someone else's house and drunk herself to the point of puking, even his sympathy had dried up.

What welled up instead was — half irritation, half a feeling of well, can't be helped. The same feeling from ten years ago, when they'd been explorers in the same clan — a feeling he didn't much want to remember now. He couldn't bring himself to abandon her for the simple reason that she was one of his own.

"Jeez, give me a break. A young chick old enough to know better barges into a thirty-five-year-old geezer's place and gets blind stinking drunk..."

Since it was his own home, he didn't hold back lighting a cigarette, exhaling the smoke with open disgust.

"Can't get through it without gettin' drunk, senpai... I was tryin' so hard to be a capable woman... senpai, I was a piece-of-shit useless woman... ehehehe..."

Whether she was listening to Sadoyama's grumbling or not, Nanami repeated a line she'd already gone through about a hundred times.

"You retired from being an explorer, smoothly landed a job at the Labyrinth Agency, handled your work, did the manager thing for an idol explorer team — and since you hadn't had any real stumbles up to now, you can't be that useless, can you?"

"But... when it comes to whether those girls needed me... they didn't need me at all, did they..."

Grinning vacantly, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes, Nanami started melting into a limp puddle again.

This too had been repeated dozens of times, so Sadoyama didn't bother comforting her each time.

To begin with, there couldn't be all that many irreplaceable roles in this world. Even the members of 'Anthem' themselves weren't necessarily the only ones who had to be them — someone else who could do roughly the same things should've been fine too.

If that was the case, then Hamamatsu Nanami should've been fine too, and Sadoyama being the section chief of the Labyrinth Department should've been fine too. Anyone else would've been fine — and it didn't even have to be anyone else.

It was simply that no replaceable individual happened to be on hand.

As for the role itself — anyone would've done.

"Well, even if it hadn't been Nanami-chan, she wouldn't have stood a chance against that Demon or whatever — so sure, it was humiliating, but just being alive is already a win, right?"

"...Being killed would've been better than that..."

"Right — because then you wouldn't have to keep disgracing yourself and piling on the minuses like you're doing now? I don't care how drunk you are, watch your mouth. So our leader would've been better off dead? No matter how disgraceful a sight he made, I'd have wanted him alive. That's how I feel, anyway. Maybe Nanami-chan feels differently."

"That's not — urp, blargh... t-t-toilet...!"

Nanami, roused to anger and trying to stand, was beaten down by nausea from a volume of alcohol past her limit and ran for the toilet. He'd have preferred she not turn someone else's toilet into a vomit-stink hell, but oh well. One of the short straws he'd drawn.

While dealing with the drunk, his cigarette count had climbed — and he now remembered he hadn't eaten, either. The table was littered with empty bottles and snacks, but for the time being Sadoyama chose not to look. Given the alcohol content and quantity needed to get a former B-rank explorer drunk, it was quite a sight — but at this point he couldn't care less.

When I end up like this, I don't seem to have anywhere to crawl home to, either — thoughts like that crossed his mind too, but that didn't particularly bother him. He didn't feel envious, either.

That aside — Demons, huh...

He'd killed the leader of the clan Sadoyama and the others used to belong to. Apparently the Demon who'd bothered coming down to the basement of that building had confessed to as much — but Sadoyama found it suspicious. Even if it was true, it probably wasn't something he'd done specifically to torment Nanami or Sadoyama. No doubt he'd had some scheme or other, and they'd simply happened to be in the way — something like that — but whether that was the case or not, Sadoyama wasn't about to do anything about it now.

He'd stepped down from that stage.

That he hadn't managed to step down completely was idiotic of him, he knew.

"With Habaki-san here, the S City countermeasures will probably get cobbled together by force... and a fair number of personnel will be brought in from outside. Given the ranks of Noumi Dungeon and Sugai Dungeon, S City's manpower can't control it. Who knows what'll happen with the old men, either... well, things'll work out somehow."

Drifting along, giving up, accepting it — still alive.

Sadoyama didn't consider that shameful.

Well, barging into a former senior's place and spewing complaints and self-deprecation while pouring down booze by the bucket was fairly shameful in itself... but he didn't think she should die for it.

He lit another cigarette, inhaled the toxins deep into his lungs, and exhaled. He watched the purple smoke smoldering off the tip swim emptily through the room, but no clever words or thoughts came to mind.

Before he'd noticed, the sun had long since set, and he was starting to want some proper food. Sadoyama himself had only humored her with two glasses the night before — since then it had been nothing but barley tea and snacks.

"Maybe I should go out shopping..."

He decided to contact Habaki while he was at it and get him to take the drunk woman off his hands, then changed into his usual suit in the bedroom and picked up his wallet, key case, and mobile terminal.

That instant — an incoming message.

From Kawai Sakiho, who'd been his subordinate until just the other day.

"Just now, Hayasaka-san said there was an emergency and headed for Noumi Dungeon. Details unknown."

"...Seriously."

After only a moment's hesitation, Sadoyama called Kawai Sakiho. Whether fortunately or naturally, she picked up with almost no lag.

〈"Hello. Kawai speaking."〉

"Sadoyama here. I saw your message, but I don't follow."

〈"I don't follow it either. Let me explain the situation. There was nothing for Hayasaka-san himself to do today, so I went to visit Kujo Reiko-san's subordinate — the one using Hayasaka-san's apartment as a base — to have her teach me the office work. We had some small talk along the way, but anyway, right around the time we were thinking of heading out to pick up dinner, Tia-san's loud voice rang out."〉

"The dragon-slaying one?"

〈"She said, 'I'm heading to Noumi Dungeon now,' 'probably an emergency,' 'I don't understand the situation,' 'figure it out somehow.' She flew off at a speed that looked like a joke, so I think she really was in a hurry. She probably raised her voice so the people in the apartment would hear. The fact that she told us means there must be something we can do."〉

"So you contacted me. Noumi Dungeon should be off-limits to anyone but 'Anthem,' who's investigating it right now... well, anyway, I'll head to the scene. I'll wait on standby at the dungeon entrance, so could you drop Hayasaka-kun a message saying 'contact me once things settle down'?"

〈"Understood. Um — I'm not your subordinate anymore, so I'm sorry for contacting you personally."〉

"It's fine. If anything, I'm grateful. Hanging up."

〈"Yes. I'm counting on you."〉

The voice on the other end of the signal was far more put-together than the one Sadoyama had known. Incomparable to when she'd been manning the counter at the Sugai Dungeon branch office.

He tossed the mobile terminal into his suit's inner pocket, fitted the bone-conduction earpiece into his ear, said nothing to the toilet's resident, and left the house.

He got into the car, inserted the key, started the engine — and before setting off, tried calling a chief clerk in the Labyrinth Department. Regular hours were already over, but the call went through.

"Hello. Sadoyama here. Sorry to bother you past regular hours. There's something I'd like to confirm."

So saying, he set the car in motion. He didn't know how urgent it was, but if Hayasaka Toru and the dragon-slaying swordswoman went all out, he wouldn't be able to catch up either way. By the time Sadoyama reached the scene, something or other would probably be settled, so it'd be better to help with the cleanup. Conversely, if even those two couldn't settle it, Sadoyama going would be useless.

〈"Yes, hello. This is unusual. What's up?"〉

"You know about 'Toru-bro,' right? Just now, I got a tip from a source saying an abnormal situation is unfolding at Noumi Dungeon and that they're heading there. I'm heading to Noumi Dungeon now. If you know anything, tell me."

He'd taken a day off because Hamamatsu Nanami had stormed his place, leaving a one-day blank. He'd figured the only people going into the dungeon would be 'Anthem' or someone connected to Kujo Reiko, so he'd thought, well, fine.

〈"Noumi Dungeon... ah, exploration permission — upper layers only — was issued to a relative of Yamada-san. Up to the fourth floor, if I recall. Those are floors 'Anthem' has already investigated, so—"〉

"Haah!? Who issued the permit?!"

He almost crushed the steering wheel in his grip and hastily loosened his hold. That he didn't floor the accelerator was a triumph of reason. To calm down for the moment, he pulled a cigarette from the pack left in the car and lit it.

〈"Wh-who, you ask... she pushed it through on a city councilor's connections, so if you're asking who, it's Yamada-san. You know her, don't you, Section Chief? Come to think of it, that same Yamada-san apparently had a run-in with Hayasaka-san, and she was reassigned away from reception duty..."〉

"Shit of all shits. That shit-barrel should drop dead."

〈"Hold on — that's a risky thing to say in this day and age. I understand how you feel, but..."〉

"The shit-barrel woman's relative would be... a university club. So why would an abnormal situation break out? It's an exploration of up to the fourth floor, which has already been investigated, right?"

〈"I wouldn't know even if you asked me..."〉

"True enough. Sorry, past regular hours and all. Anyway, I'm heading to Noumi Dungeon. Is anyone still at the Kamioka Dungeon branch?"

Kamioka Dungeon itself had vanished, but the Noumi and Sugai Dungeon branches had been crushed by the hydra and giant serpent that emerged during the 'Dungeon Rampage.' Ironically, the only branch still standing was the Kamioka Dungeon branch — the one with no dungeon.

〈"No, no one's left. It should be closed."〉

"Bureaucratic work for you. Literally."

〈"Well, it is a government office..."〉

"Roger. Then I'll do as I please on my own authority. Tomorrow, when the shit-barrel woman comes in to work, absolutely do not let her slip away. As for the city councilor backing her — our esteemed Labyrinth Inspector General just happens to be in town, so I'll have him apply the pressure. Does the mayor know about this?"

〈"No, he shouldn't know about this particular matter itself... The friction between Hayasaka-san and Yamada-san — or more precisely, Yamada-san being petty toward Kawai-san — is what happened. At that time, the mayor sprinted over and things settled down without incident. From here on, it sounds like Matsushima-kun will be Hayasaka-san's contact."〉

"So the mayor and Hayasaka-kun reconciled?"

〈"Well, his handshake was refused, but they found a compromise, I'd say. Just like you said, Section Chief — he really is rational."〉

The matter-of-fact, "I was honestly impressed" tone made Sadoyama laugh before he knew it.

Categorizing Hayasaka Toru as a "crude rock-bottom cleaner" — as the former Kawai Sakiho and the early Hamamatsu Nanami had done — was, to some extent, unavoidable. Sadoyama himself was favorably disposed toward the man's character, but that was his own personal sensibility.

That a chief clerk of the Labyrinth Department had properly evaluated Hayasaka Toru from a personal standpoint made Sadoyama a little happy. Though probably not in any situation where that mattered.

"All right then, that's how it is. Hanging up."

〈"Yes. Please be careful. If you're gone, Section Chief, we're in trouble."〉

The call cut off with a click.

Before he knew it, Noumi Dungeon was right before his eyes.

However — the surroundings were so devastated that he had to park partway and approach the rest on foot. As if confirming the chief clerk's testimony, parked right near where Sadoyama had stopped was a wagon that appeared to belong to the university club members — and he found himself chewing on an indescribably bad premonition.

"Why's it always like this, one thing after another..."

Which was better — babysitting a junior who was vomiting at his place, or this? He considered that for just an instant, then lit another cigarette, slowly inhaled the smoke and exhaled, and gave a small wry laugh.

Both were bound to be awful.

And — in the end, he couldn't bring himself to abandon either one.