Sadoyama Kouji took a cigarette from the inner pocket of his suit and lit it.

The heavy smoke invaded his lungs, dulling his mind in exchange for poor health. His sense of justice, common sense, ethics—feelings of helplessness that had nowhere to go were blurred and disguised by tar and nicotine.

He exhaled and looked up at the sky. It was an almost spitefully clear day.

Would the version of himself from ten years ago have ever imagined a future where he smoked from the morning and felt resentment toward a cloudless sky? He would bet anything that the twenty-five-year-old Sadoyama Kouji hadn’t even entertained the possibility of such a future, not even in the corner of his mind.

With a wry smile, he roughly scratched at his greasy hair and exhaled smoke once more.

“Oh, there you are. Smoking’s prohibited on the rooftop, Sadoyama-senpai.”

Appearing through the thick iron door leading to the rooftop was Hamamatsu Nanami, one of the managers of the A-rank explorer clan Anthem.

The fact that the girl who had been an explorer in the same clan as Sadoyama ten years ago was now wearing a crisp pantsuit and carrying herself like a capable professional woman filled him with a certain sense of sentimentality.

“Smoking rules aside, the rooftop itself is off-limits, Nanami-chan.”

“That’s not something you say after calling someone out to a place like this.”

Nanami lowered the corners of her eyebrows in exasperation. Very little of her old self could be seen in that expression. The girl who had once done nothing but kill dungeon monsters had become a proper working adult.

Of course, from Nanami’s perspective, it would be just as hard to find traces of Sadoyama’s former self.

But that didn’t matter.

He hadn’t called her here to reminisce about the past.

“Does the Dungeon Affairs Division use this hotel often? It felt like they’re used to hosting explorers. For a regional city, I mean.”

“More or less. It’s rare to invite an A-rank group like Anthem, but we bring people in from outside fairly often to keep the balance of the city’s dungeons in check.”

“Old connections?”

“That too. The mayor and the city council hate it, but the Dungeon Agency’s budget has nothing to do with the city. Considering dungeon resources, they ought to be celebrating, but well—old men tend to be stubborn. For the record, inviting Anthem wasn’t my call. It was pushed by a prefectural assembly member. A-rank explorers are honestly overkill for a town like this.”

“Oooh… look at you, senpai. A respectable public servant.”

“And you too, Nanami-chan. Anthem’s activities are part of policy, right? An elite group of explorers selected from among those already deemed dungeon-compatible… being their manager makes you a national civil servant.”

“That’s quite the promotion. I’m probably getting paid better than a local government employee like you.”

“That’s something to envy.”

He let out a dry chuckle, took another drag of smoke, and exhaled. With ash creeping all the way down to the filter, he crushed the cigarette between his fingers and reduced it to literal ashes with fire magic.

As he flicked what used to be a cigarette into the wind, he met the serious gaze of his former junior. The murderous intent she once had was gone, but what replaced it felt even more earnest.

Ten years ago, she had fought with the resolve to die—and if she had died, that would have been fine.

Now it was different. If she didn’t approach things with absolute seriousness, she would end up killing people who wasn’t herself—people much younger, juniors.

She had grown up.

And more than he’d ever expected, she had grown into quite a decent adult.

“Senpai. Don’t tell me there were no warning signs for this Kamioka Dungeon mutation. The fact that Megumi and the others didn’t die was practically a miraculous coincidence.”

“…Yeah. That’s true.”

“You look like you pulled an all-nighter. What kind of plan did you put together?”

Nanami had set aside the hostility he’d been bracing himself for and prioritized moving the conversation forward, and that honestly surprised Sadoyama.

“What is it, senpai? Would it have been better if I’d pointed a blade at you like the old days?”

“The fact you can say that instead of doing it really proves you’ve grown up, Nanami-chan.”

“Thanks for that. Now—about the plan?”

“I secured a prefectural government conference room for one p.m. It’s… eight in the morning now, right? Then Anthem should be getting contacted in about fifteen minutes. I called in an S City council member and the mayor, the prefectural assemblyman who pushed for inviting Anthem, and one Dungeon Agency staffer besides myself.”

“So you rescued Anthem from the Kamioka Dungeon and kept moving without a break. Let’s put the blade-pointing on hold, then.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Letting out a careless chuckle, Sadoyama took another cigarette from his suit’s inner pocket, lit it with magic, and inhaled the smoke.

His brain dulled.

All the things that became unbearable when he tried to live like a decent human being drifted just a little farther away.

“Big shots get used to being big shots, I guess. This is just my personal opinion, but whether it’s a backwater like this or Tokyo, the ‘king of the hill’ mentality doesn’t really change. You know that too, Nanami-chan.”

“Coming from the guy who once tried to beat a Dungeon Agency official to death, that carries some weight.”

“Call it youthful indiscretion. These days I’m just a washed-up local government middle-aged man.”

“Senpai. This time, we won’t hold back. No matter what happens to the dungeon-related people of XX Prefecture, that’s not our problem.”

The gaze of his former junior was painfully straightforward.

Sadoyama exhaled a cloud of smoke, shrugged exaggeratedly, and laughed.

“Why should I care? They act so high and mighty because they think no one can reach them from where they stand. Let them get torn apart by public backlash. Operations will keep running even without them.”

“Hearing that makes it sound like you’re using us.”

“That’s the last thing I’d do. I’ve never once thought about using young lives as sacrifices to ‘clean up’ politics. Nanami-chan—what I want is simple. If I can help, even just a little, the people within my reach live each day to the fullest… that’s enough for me.”

“Senpai… you really have turned into an old man, haven’t you.”

Faced with his former junior staring at him wide-eyed in genuine surprise, Sadoyama could only give a wry smile.

“Thirty-five, you know? Of course I’m an old man. More importantly—do you understand that there are uncertainties involved? They have rights too, so I’m planning to call them in.”

“The Dragon-Slaying Swordswoman and Worksite Bro, you mean.”

“…Huh? What’s that supposed to be?”

“Please check SNS once in a while. …Well, if you’re not involved in supporting streams like I am, I guess it can’t be helped.”

Sadoyama didn’t have a habit of regularly checking SNS. He knew that some explorers engaged in streaming activities, and that dungeon exploration streams had become one form of entertainment these days, but he didn’t want to think about dungeons even in his private life.

“Worksite Bro would be… Hayasaka-kun, right. He was wearing work clothes, sure, but still.”

“You know him?”

“There’s a D-rank dungeon called the Sugai Dungeon near the Kamioka Dungeon. It was so unpopular that they ended up needing a ‘cleaner.’ Hayasaka-kun has been working as a cleaner there for three years now. Kind of an unfortunate kid—I’d been keeping an eye on him.”

“‘Cleaner’ is the kind of job people do when they aren’t issued an explorer license, right? Because their mana aptitude doesn’t meet the required threshold… so how did someone like that show up from the lower levels of the Kamioka Dungeon and defeat the boss?”

“How should I know? I didn’t ask.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“Because I was scared.”

At Sadoyama’s blunt answer, Nanami visibly caught her breath. As a former B-rank explorer, she clearly understood what he meant.

The Dragon-Slaying Swordswoman Hayasaka Tooru had been with—that was on a completely different level.

Even Sadoyama, who had once been A-rank, couldn’t begin to gauge her limits. All he could tell was that she was overwhelmingly strong, far beyond comparison.

He absolutely did not want to casually speak to her and accidentally step on a landmine. And if he were to anger her, there was no way he wanted to bear the responsibility for what might follow.

“…You really mean that much, senpai?”

“Wouldn’t the Anthem members give similar testimony? I only arrived later; I didn’t see it firsthand. But they should have witnessed the swordswoman fight.”

“…Those girls were completely in chaos at the time. And because they’re too talented, they falter under extreme pressure. Megumi and Chizuru themselves said that their perspectives in that situation aren’t very reliable.”

“Just having that self-awareness is impressive enough.”

“You’re going to call people even you fear, right? That doesn’t mean we’ll hold back—but… who takes responsibility for the outcome?”

“The one in charge takes responsibility. I haven’t seen the person in charge actually do it much… but this time, they won’t have a choice. Probably.”

He let out a small laugh. Nanami narrowed her eyes—wariness, perhaps a bit of contempt, and… maybe sympathy. They’d both grown into adults, but along different paths. Sadoyama didn’t consider that a bad thing.

“I’ll probably cause some trouble… but I won’t apologize.”

Without giving any parting words, Hamamatsu Nanami spun on her heels. Her back, little reminiscent of the girl from years ago, drew Sadoyama to inhale smoke, exhale, and call out.

“Nanami-chan. Hayasaka Tooru isn’t a bad kid. At the very least, he’s far more reasonable and principled than we were ten years ago.”

So… don’t take advantage of him.

It was a small, almost prayer-like hope, though Sadoyama—unbelieving as he was—knew that no deity would ever heed such a prayer.

Naturally, Nanami didn’t reply.