ch81-ch100 · 091-ch90

Chapter 90

Sadoyama Koji carted Seno Kyohei off to the hotel being used by the A-rank explorer clan 'Anthem,' and handed him over to the Labyrinth Inspector likewise lodged there — Habaki Ryo.

Followed on paper, it was a quick enough story — but ferrying around a university student sunk in gloom, wearing the face of a man who wished a hole would open in the ground so he could crawl in and die, made for a leadenly heavy stretch of time in the back seat; and considering that meanwhile his own home toilet and living room stood a fair chance of being trashed by a drunk, the weight only piled on.

In the end, he smoked like a chimney without the slightest deference to the ex-monster behind him — but Seno Kyohei, to his credit, offered not one word of complaint. Whether the man had genuinely been humbled into penitence... Sadoyama, who'd never known the everyday Seno, was in no position to say.

Turned into a monster, rampaged as he pleased — and then been rescued, with the blows held back...

That had to be excruciatingly awkward — no question about it.

But whether that was the whole of it — again, far too little to judge by. And he didn't care to speculate that far on the man's behalf, either.

And so he marched up to the Labyrinth Inspector's room on the top floor and knocked — insistently, over and over — and in under ten seconds, the door opened.

Only, it didn't open all the way. It stopped a crack ajar, held by that hotel-specific lock.

"Do you grasp, my good man, that come tomorrow, this S City hosts a conference of grave consequence for its future? And so, on the eve of it, to have a university club's clan thrown headlong into a labyrinth sealed off over a government office's human error, whereupon a club member injects himself, of his own free will, with a syringe received from a Demon and mutates into a monster — and then, no sooner does one think that, than another member turns out to be an acquaintance of Hayasaka Toru, and calls Hayasaka Toru for help, and is helped, and the man is carved apart with the 'Cursed Blade' in question in all his non-human portions, thereby reverting from former monster to former human, whom you now see fit to bring round to me — well. It does put me in rather a bind, you realize."

Having laid out the situation in rough strokes, Sadoyama listened to the Labyrinth Inspector pour out a full course of complaints from behind the barely open door. So Sadoyama put on an exaggerated shrug and a sigh.

"Ahh, believe me — we're troubled on our end too. Demons this, conspiracies that — I'm sorry to say it's rather beyond the hands of a regional city Labyrinth Department section chief."

He tossed in a hahaha for good measure — whereupon the door closed once, there came the clack of the lock coming free, and the door opened.

Despite the hour — a hotel room at night — Habaki Ryo had his wire of a physique done up in a suit; he glared at Sadoyama with a face of the utmost unwillingness, then let a breath out: haah.

"Sadoyama — the former A-rank, isn't it. Very well, very well indeed. From the look of you, you truly don't understand much of the situation — so hand over that young man, and do hurry home. You, for your part, are past hours, I should think."

"Appreciate you making it quick."

"Dragging the talk out looked unlikely to net me anything, after all. You — Seno Kyohei, was it. For the present, I shall place you in custody. I have handcuffs that seal mana; I'll be making use of them — no objection, I trust? You hardly look to have the energy left for running."

"...Do I look that way?"

Seno had the face of a man three or four days short of sleep — but if anything, it gave Sadoyama a small flash of irritation. Playing the victim over a disaster of your own making — a fairly sorry look, that. Well — still a cut above wearing a smug face about it, presumably.

"Then — enter the room. I can offer a cup of tea, at least. Sadoyama — do be off home. From here on in, this is our domain. Should it become necessary, I'll route information your way. Whether any report can be left for you, I can't say."

To Habaki's shooing wave, Sadoyama waved back, all smiles. Seno Kyohei was swallowed up beyond the door; once it had closed, he let out a good grief of a sigh.

Back when Sadoyama was an explorer, Habaki Ryo had still been a Labyrinth Agency staffer. Sadoyama had been in his care a few times — and had in turn taken commissions and returned the favor. And now the man was a Labyrinth Inspector — set against a regional city's Labyrinth Department section chief, quite the ascent.

He envied him not one iota, from the bottom of his heart — but let his thoughts wander down that road, and they'd boomerang straight back to and what, then, of me now? So Sadoyama resolved to clear out of the hotel posthaste. Passing through the absurdly grand entrance, before returning to the parking lot he made for the convenience store just nearby. His cigarettes were running low, and — about time — he was hungry.

Living alone, with irregular hours on top of it — civil servants were supposed to clock in and out on schedule, in principle — calling the convenience store his beloved wife would have been no exaggeration. He could understand the feelings of Japan's explorers, who had fought to defend their life infrastructure at all costs; and Sadoyama himself, once upon a time, had moved to put the brakes on any reckless elevation of explorer standing.

Hand men who'd gained nothing but strength power on top of it, and nothing good would come — so he'd thought.

Ten years on from quitting the explorer trade, all that had sunk in was a piece of general wisdom: there are rotten powerholders in this world — and, well, so it seems there are decent ones, too.

He rather fancied he'd turned into a more decent adult than he'd once figured on — and yet the 'proper grown-up' he'd pictured as a small child sat a very long way off still.

At the very least, he had never aspired to be the sort of adult who has a yakiniku bento warmed up for him at a late-night convenience store. Not that he'd been dead set against turning into that sort of adult, either.

"Huh...? Sadoyama-san...?"

The voice came at him, a tiny dropped remark. No — less a voice pitched at him than a few words blurted out in surprise that happened to reach his ears, perhaps.

Turning, he found the person behind him in the register line to be a member of 'Anthem' — the healing mage, Mido Airi. An idol explorer, so presumably she took care when out walking: hat and glasses, a disguise of sorts — but the air about her gave her away at once.

A glance showed the basket she held loaded down with snack foods and deli breads and the like; catching the direction of his gaze, Airi hastily shook her head.

"Th-this isn't — I mean, it's not that I'm a glutton or anything, you see..."

"Hahaha. You're a gathering of young folks, aren't you? Nothing to feel bad about. This town's short on decent entertainment as it is, and after everything that's happened, it's hardly a time for fun and games, either. And you're about as far from short on exercise as a person can get — so why not, really."

He'd blurted out a thoroughly gruff-old-man bit of reassurance without meaning to — but he was, in actual fact, a gruff old man, so it couldn't be helped. His bento finished warming and the bill settled, Sadoyama stepped aside from the register to let Airi through, and was just raising a hand in a well, then — when that hand got seized.

His guard being down was part of it, but that was cleanly fast.

He might be granting her a handicap or two — but an A-rank explorer she unmistakably was.

"Um...! Would it be all right — if we talked, a little?"

The words the 'Saintess' let slip were, as far as Sadoyama was concerned, an unexpected thing.

That an idol explorer would ever say 'I want to talk' to him was a development Sadoyama Koji's circuitry would never have generated. He felt no joy whatsoever — fifty percent bewilderment, and fifty percent a disinclination to let his hard-won warmed bento go cold.

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In the end, he doubled back to the hotel parking lot clutching his warmed convenience-store bento, installed Mido Airi in the back seat, took the driver's seat himself, and peeled the bento open. The smell of sauce and rice drifted through the car, so — no help for it — he started the engine and cracked the windows.

"I'm going to eat my bento for now, but if there's something you wanted to talk about, be my guest."

As Sadoyama set into his convenience-store bento with zero ceremony — his own car, after all — Mido Airi seemed to think a moment, then opened what was apparently a package of sweets she'd bought, and began eating too. The small crunch-crunch of chocolate cookies being chewed carried faintly through the car.

Having next secured the humidity of her mouth with a bottled tea — likewise apparently pre-purchased — Mido Airi spoke.

"Manager Hamamatsu Nanami-san and Sadoyama-san — I believe yours is a junior-and-senior relationship... could you tell me about Nanami-san?"

"About Nanami-chan?"

"When we formed 'Anthem'... no — rather, when Sensei arranged for the gathered lot of us to be handled as 'Anthem,' one of the managers introduced to us was Nanami-san. There are several other managers as well, but she was the only one who'd been a high-rank explorer... and she was truly devoted to us."

"Huh."

A Hamamatsu Nanami who guided and protected others did not overlap with the pig-headed girl in Sadoyama's memory. When they'd reunited the other day, he'd thought them both proper adults now... well — if she'd learned to keep up appearances, then one way or another she'd grown one notch, at least.

Then again, Sadoyama himself had committed elder abuse in the middle of a conference, so he was hardly one to talk. The soul you have at three stays with you to a hundred, as they say.

"Nanami-san herself would deny it, I'm sure — and perhaps Sensei would deny it too. Others, looking on from the outside, would run her down bitterly. Just as Megumi-chan got angry — Nanami-san did abandon her own work. But it's also true that she took us to heart, helped us, encouraged us. That part is real."

No anger, no sorrow, no bewilderment seeped into Mido Airi's tone. If anything, it was calm — calm enough to make him feel faintly guilty, shoveling bento into his mouth as he was.

But he was, in fact, hungry, and the yakiniku bento was delicious — so he simply chewed what he'd pitched in and washed it down into his stomach with bottled tea.

"I don't know how much you lot know — and I'll be honest, I'm not sure how much of it I've got a grip on myself, either — but: the Demon business?"

"The man who appeared while they were surveilling Prefectural Assemblyman Sasamori was, they believe, a Demon. At nearly the same hour, Chizuru-chan was attacked by a Demon man in front of the Sugai Dungeon — though with Chizuru-chan, they say it was only something like a preliminary feeler. And then there's how Tia-san came to beat one to a pulp to force a confession. The wounds from that — Tia-san healed them with magic, so they say."

"Okay. What we're each holding is near enough the same. And the tale that Nanami-chan and I ran as explorers in the same clan?"

"I never heard it from Nanami-san's own mouth. But she did call Sadoyama-san 'senpai' — so I wondered whether you mightn't be old friends."

And it was common knowledge that Hamamatsu Nanami had once been a B-rank explorer. In which case, 'senpai' fit better as her senior from explorer days than as one from after she'd joined the Labyrinth Agency. For that matter, if he were a 'senior' among Anthem's managers, there'd be no explaining what he was doing as a local civil servant out in a regional city like this.

"Well — you'd hardly want an old man's war stories dragged out at length, so I'll keep it short... By the by — you know that ten years back, the age restrictions on explorers were still loose?"

"Yes. Nanami-san has spoken of it a few times."

"Nanami-chan joined the clan at sixteen or thereabouts, I think it was. Our clan leader went and picked her up, you see. And to Nanami-chan — he was her hero. A girl orphaned by labyrinth troubles: he took her in, put her in the clan, built up her strength. And before anyone knew it, that plain, powerless girl could bring down monsters that dropped two hundred thousand yen's worth of magic cores. Any way you sliced it, she'd never want for a living again."

At that point, there'd surely also been a path — become the sort of explorer who 'keeps hunting monsters that are just the right size,' and rebuild her life with the time left over. Redo her schooling, get a qualification, land a job through her explorer connections — that sort of thing.

But that wasn't how it went.

Because back then, the lot of them had believed they could fly on forever. Because they'd loved walking beside a leader who strode for the 'top' looking like he was having the time of his life.

"Once, we dove into a high-difficulty labyrinth, and even then the run was going smoothly. Then we crossed into unexplored territory, dropped down a few floors, and got split apart in a big room partway along that floor. A forced teleport trap, by the feel of it. By the time I found my way back to the original room, the leader was dead — and Nanami-chan was clinging to his corpse, wailing her heart out."

Having said that much, he stole a glance at Airi — fallen silent, as though chewing the old story over — and devoted himself to the chewing of bento.

"...And after that?"

Around when he'd polished off the bento and pitched the refuse into a plastic bag, Airi finally put the question to him. Whether she'd managed to sort something out in her chest, or had failed to sort it out, set it aside, and simply nudged the story along for the moment — Sadoyama couldn't tell.

Only — with a 'junior' like this to worry over her, it couldn't be such bad work, he thought. Whether Nanami herself had noticed that much was another question.

"We recovered the leader's body, slugged the wailing Nanami-chan out cold, and what members were left went back aboveground and the clan dissolved. The one who scouted Nanami-chan afterward was, I'd wager, Habaki-san. They were perpetually recruiting staff with explorer histories... and — not to put too fine a point on it — a know-nothing little girl would have been easy to educate."

'Though that man's hardly cut out for any educating himself, mind' — having let the needless remark slip, he got an ambiguous little wry smile back from Airi.

What she made of it all, he didn't know — and he had a sense he shouldn't even try imagining. The clan had dissolved; the moment Nanami took her post at the Labyrinth Agency, their roads had split. That they'd met again, and that he still, in the end, couldn't leave her be — that was Sadoyama's own failing. Even now, he still caught glimpses of the girl from back then. However foolish a thing that was... she was the child their leader had saved.

He couldn't abandon her — and he had no thought of saving her, either.

What a rotten way to be — he had to laugh.

"Come to think of it — does Dr. Mido know about this business?"

"No — ah... who can say. I haven't told them anything myself, but there may have been information-sharing from Sensei's side. There are surely past incidents, too, that a piece called 'the Demons' shadow-scheming' could be slotted into."

That reply, without one seam out of place, overlapped with no girl in Sadoyama's memory. The Hamamatsu Nanami of twenty had been far, far cheekier — and far more childish.

Good grief — Sadoyama heaved a theatrical sigh, drew a single cigarette from his pocket, clamped it between his lips, and turned once more toward the back seat.

"That about does it for the story, yes? I'm about ready for that cigarette, and your old uncle here is a touch worn out. Tomorrow's bound to be tiring too, so if I can help it, I'd like to go home and sleep."

"Yes. I'm sorry for having dragged you along."

Nodding with startling readiness, Mido Airi took her laden plastic bag in hand, opened the door, and slipped smoothly out of the car.

Then — as if she'd had it prepared in advance — she added:

"— Oh, that's right, Sadoyama-san. Just a short while ago, Nanami-san came back. She said she'd gotten miserably drunk at her senpai's place and it had been awkward, so she'd have to apologize later."

"...Oh, is that right. Then go ahead and tell her to knock off the 'gotta apologize later' bit. 'You still haven't gotten around to apologizing to Hayasaka-kun either, have you' — say it like that."

He'd figured that was decent enough, for irony wrung out on the spur of the moment — but Mido Airi, without any great change of expression, placid as ever, simply nodded.

"Yes, understood. I'll pass it along."

Bam — the door shut.

After confirming the sight of Mido Airi walking away across the parking lot in that same ordinary rhythm, Sadoyama finally lit his cigarette, drew the smoke in deep and full — and let it out.

It tasted something like regret.