Morning. Tooru woke up normally without dreaming, slammed some sugar into his brain with a canned coffee drink, got ready in a slapdash way, and headed out. The same jeans as yesterday, a quick-dry, moisture-wicking T-shirt from the home center, and a windbreaker.

“Streaming, huh. A stream, they say, Tooru. I’m looking forward to it.”

Tia, dressed like a fantasy town girl, sat in the passenger seat of the kei car. Beaming, she gazed out at the streetscape and kept asking, “What’s that?” “What’s this?” Tooru listened to about half of it and answered that half vaguely as he drove along the prefectural road.

The designated location was a hotel in the neighboring city, coming from S City.

Now that he thought about it, Anthem had streamed before entering the dungeon, hadn’t they? Tooru recalled. He’d only watched it by chance—he’d never imagined he’d end up involved like this. If he had imagined it, that would have made him a pretty seriously cringeworthy guy.

A bottom-tier cleaner rescuing members of an explorer clan with some of the biggest idol-level popularity in Japan… It was like one of those delusions where a terrorist bursts into a classroom.

He sighed. Let’s not get carried away, Tooru resolved inwardly. For reasons he didn’t fully understand, he was drawing attention; S City was in the middle of a full-blown flame war; a beautiful spirit attached to a holy sword had incarnated and slain a dragon.

“Hm? What is it, Tooru? You look like you’ve got something you want to say. If you do, I’ll listen properly, you know?”

Tia tilted her head, puzzled. But Tooru didn’t really have anything he wanted to say.

So he let out an unaesthetic “heh” of a breath and pretended her question hadn’t existed. He knew himself it was pretty rude, but Tia didn’t get angry—she just looked confused.

After about forty minutes of driving the kei car, they arrived at the hotel.

It was a fairly large place, with parking for non-guests as well. Tooru parked near the edge on a whim, sent a message to Hamamatsu Nanami on his mobile to say he’d arrived, and then headed for the lobby—leaving both the holy sword and the rebar club in the car.

As an aside, it seemed Tia didn’t lose her manifested form even when separated from the holy sword; rather, if she moved more than a certain distance away from Tooru, her manifestation would be forcibly undone.

Anyway.

A luxury hotel—something Tooru’s life should have had no connection to. He passed through the glass revolving door at the entrance and into the first-floor atrium.

Fortunately—or perhaps not—Anthem’s manager was waiting in a spot that was immediately visible. Beside her stood an unfamiliar girl; she might have been one of Anthem’s members, but Tooru didn’t know enough to be sure.

“Good morning. Thank you for coming all this way. Hayasaka-san, and… may I call you Tia-san?”

The woman in a pantsuit who looked highly competent took a deferential stance toward Tooru, which made him intensely uncomfortable. Even more so because he could somehow tell that it was only show deference.

No matter where he looked in the atrium, there wasn’t a single person dressed in jeans and a windbreaker. Naturally, there was no one in a fantasy town-girl outfit either—but wherever you put Tia, she probably wouldn’t look shabby.

“Of course, I don’t mind. And what should I call you?”

“Whatever you like.”

“You’re Hamamatsu Nanami, right? Then I’ll call you Nanami.”

Tia said it with a bright smile. Her manner was so natural—no inferiority complex, no arrogance. And how should one put it… there was none of that tone-deaf, out-of-place feeling either. She was friendly, but not overly familiar.

Though with Tooru, she’d felt pretty overly familiar from the start.

As he was thinking that, the young girl who had been standing beside Nanami stepped forward—two full steps—and stared openly at Tooru and Tia.

Her gaze was cool, appraising.

The reason he perceived her as a young girl was probably because she was quite short and slender. Her silver hair, close to ash gray, didn’t look dyed—apparently it was natural. She wore a skirt about knee-length with boots, and on top a blouse buttoned neatly all the way up to the collar, layered with a cardigan. The overall palette was monochrome, and her posture was so good she could have passed for a fashion model.

Her skin was chillingly pale, her features doll-like in their perfection—and the tips of her ears were clearly longer and more pointed than a human’s.

If one were to add to that, the way she looked at Tooru and Tia was, for some reason, sharply pointed as well.

“Oh, an elf. So they exist in this world too,”

Tia murmured without any ulterior intent. At that, the elf girl—or an elf who looked like a girl, at least—narrowed her eyes slightly.

“You’re the woman who’s supposedly a spirit possessing a holy sword?”

Her voice was neither high nor low, carrying a faintly emotionless tone.

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m Tia. And you are?”

“Irselia. Irselia Lumiester. By human standards, I’d be what you call an S-rank explorer. Viewers on my streams sometimes call me ‘Ii-chan,’ but I’d prefer you not use that.”

“Then I’ll call you Irselia. Are you a member of Anthem too?”

“You don’t know? I’m probably famous enough that, among the elves existing on Earth, you could count how well-known I am from the top down.”

“Sorry. I only manifested three days ago.”

Tia laughed cheerfully. She neither flinched nor bristled in the face of Irselia’s cold air.

“Hmph. Well, I suppose I’ll judge for myself whether you’re frauds or not. Nanami, explain things to them.”

With that, Irselia stepped back exactly two paces.

She apparently suspected Tooru and Tia, but that didn’t particularly bother him. Thinking about it normally, he figured they did look suspicious.

For the record, Tooru hadn’t known about this elf S-rank explorer named Irselia. Considering he barely knew anything about Anthem, Japan’s most famous idol-level explorer clan, it couldn’t really be helped.

“I’m very sorry. As you can see, Irselia isn’t very familiar with Japanese manners, so if she was rude, please allow me to apologize on her behalf. As for the main matter—well, it’s not ideal to keep talking while standing. Shall we move over there?”

Nanami pointed toward a set of tables arranged in the entrance area. They faced a glass wall, positioned so they were visible from the street outside. If you happened to glance at the hotel while walking by, it looked like the kind of spot where elite types might be having a business meeting.

When Tooru sat down as guided, the chair’s cushion was so soft his hips wouldn’t settle properly. To begin with, the entrance of a luxury hotel already made him uncomfortable—but Nanami and Irselia were hardly paying him any attention at all.

“The reason we asked you to come today is, as we mentioned beforehand, because we’d like you to appear on Anthem’s stream.”

“Yeah. I’m interested in that streaming thing. You respond to comments and stuff, right?”

“That’s right. We can’t allow completely unrestricted interaction, but we are envisioning exchanges such as answering questions from viewers.”

“I’m fine with it. Do I just chat somewhere?”

“No—actually, what we’d like is for you to explore the Kamioka Dungeon together with Anthem. It would be a dungeon exploration stream.”

“Dungeon exploration stream?”

Tia tilted her head slightly, as if to say what’s that?

Irselia looked exasperated, while Nanami wore an expression that suggested this reaction had been anticipated.

“You stream while exploring the dungeon, and the main highlight is showing the audience what it’s like to fight monsters. Communicating with viewers as you progress through the dungeon is also part of the appeal. It’s one of the mainstream forms of streaming content in modern times.”

“I see. Turning it into entertainment, huh.”

“Yes. Explorers’ activities are, by nature, difficult for the general public to understand. By broadcasting this, we hope to deepen public understanding. We’d like to reduce misunderstandings like the one that politician had, even if only a little.”

“‘You should just go haul magic cores out of dungeons,’ was it? I get it. When a mindset that looks down on socially necessary work becomes widespread, it creates friction in society. And when that strain reaches its limit, destruction happens.”

Tia opened the hand she’d lightly clenched and let out a wry smile.

It sounded like something spoken from experience—and maybe it truly was.

Nanami nodded, looking slightly pressured, and continued.

“What we’ve just explained is our general view on dungeon exploration streams, but… this request is more practical, more concrete.”

“Hm?”

“One reason is that, with only the current Anthem members, exploring the mutated Kamioka Dungeon is too dangerous. If the same floors as before still exist, then the fourteenth underground floor is only the mid-layer. A dungeon where that kind of boss monster appears in the mid-layer would be classified as S-rank.”

In other words, it was more than an A-rank explorer clan could handle.

In that case—

“If it’s too much to handle, wouldn’t it be better to just not enter the dungeon?”

Tia tilted her head in puzzlement.

Yes—normally, that would be the obvious conclusion.

After all, Anthem weren’t reckless dungeon fanatics; they were a streaming clan. And if he remembered correctly, they even operated with government backing.

“Of course, even we don’t intend to fulfill S City’s request now that things have reached this point. However—at present, there are no explorers besides us Anthem who look capable of entering the Kamioka Dungeon. That’s why we had Irselia come on such short notice via private jet, and why we asked the two of you to accompany us.”

“So there’s a reason you have to go into the Kamioka Dungeon?”

“The possibility of a Dungeon Stampede has come up.”

That concise phrase was enough to instill a sense of crisis in most modern people. It didn’t seem to fully register with Tia, though.

“The anomaly Hayasaka-san confirmed in the upper levels of the Sugai Dungeon was also observed in other dungeons within the city. If that anomaly was a precursor to the Kamioka Dungeon’s mutation, then we’re likely looking at a mutation on an unprecedented scale. In fact, boss monsters that A-rank explorers like Megumi and the others couldn’t handle have already appeared in the mid-layers.”

The mid-layer bosses—the dragon and the black knight—had been defeated by Tia and Tooru.

But they had still been mid-layer bosses.

The Kamioka Dungeon had lower layers, and depending on the scale of the mutation, it might even have deep layers. If a certain level of clearing wasn’t carried out, the internal pressure of the dungeon could reach its limit—and a Dungeon Stampede, where monsters erupted explosively out of the dungeon, might occur.

“I see,” Tia said, nodding.

Irselia narrowed her eyes, continuing to watch the holy sword wielder with a scrutinizing gaze. Nanami returned Tia’s nod, then shifted her eyes to Tooru.

“So—please. We’ve already sent requests to domestic S-rank explorer clans, so even just until they arrive would be fine. Hayasaka-san, Tia-san. Would you be willing to accompany us in exploring the Kamioka Dungeon?”

“I’m fine with it.”

Tia answered lightly and immediately, then turned her guileless gaze toward Tooru.

At some point, the elf girl had also turned her cool, incisive eyes on him.

After thinking for a moment, Tooru spoke.

“Uh… yeah, I mean, that’s fine and all, but could we talk about the magic core and dragon scale thing first? I’m pretty sure you said you’d pay double the market rate.”

“…Vulgar.”

He received a look and a word of contempt from the elf, but they didn’t land at all.

Tooru snorted and shrugged his shoulders exaggeratedly.

“I’m not gonna deny it, but if that’s the case, then are the noble, high-minded folks of Anthem really planning to sweet-talk a vulgar bottom-tier cleaner into handing over the actual magic cores and dragon scale, ask him to tag along on a dangerous dungeon run, and even help out with their streaming—while insisting that paying the money they promised could wait five or ten years?”

“No one said anything like that. I called you vulgar because, after hearing about the possibility of a Dungeon Stampede, your first concern was money.”

“So what, you’re saying I should worry about everyone else instead of myself? That if I’m worried about ‘everyone,’ I should naturally cooperate with you? Ha, I see. A vulgar thing not even on the level of a worker ant should stop thinking about himself and quietly offer everything up to the noble servants of the public, right?”

“…I’ll revise that. You’re not just vulgar—you’re a self-pitying fool.”

“Self-pitying fool or vulgar thing, I’m still alive. After everything that happened, I’m probably gonna be unemployed anyway—so what’s wrong with worrying about money? Oh, right—an able and noble elf like you wouldn’t be interested in something as base as money. Wearing outrageously expensive clothes, eating and sleeping in hotels ordinary people never set foot in, rushing over on a private jet. Meanwhile, I drove forty minutes in a kei car to get here. Wow, amazing. Truly amazing. I sincerely respect you. Please keep up the great work—and I’ll wish you good health, maybe around some random utility pole.”

With that, he stood up.

He tried to leave immediately, without hesitation—but someone grabbed his arm hard. It was Tia. She was much thinner than him, not to mention thinner than the elf girl, yet with just that light grip, it felt as though he’d been fixed in place.

“Wait, Tooru. That way of speaking isn’t good.”

“Are you stupid? Of course I know that, and of course I understand it. You think I’m talking like this because I think it’s good? Don’t screw with me. These people are no different from that city council or prefectural assembly geezer. They think they’re right. They think they’re important. So anything they do is justified. Looking down on others is justified. Things will go their way. Others will cooperate. Because they’re right, and they’re great.”

His grabbed arm wouldn’t move. It didn’t feel like she was squeezing particularly hard, yet he couldn’t break free—like a dog chained in place. He couldn’t go any farther.

The arm being held was his left.

His right hand could still move. And if that was the case, then drawing the Cursed Sword “Kagetsu” from within his left arm was also possible.

“Wait, Tooru! It’s not like that—elves are just like this. There’s no point getting angry at every little thing they say!”

“It is like that. I don’t care. Then I’m just like this. If you’re telling me to accept it because that noble elf is ‘just like that,’ then accept it because I’m this kind of guy. For starters, even that manager over there was basically ignoring me and only talking to you, wasn’t she? Yesterday’s stream was after-the-fact approval, too. She could have consulted us beforehand—but she didn’t. That means she looks down on me. She’s underestimating me. Well, sure, I guess it’s only natural to look down on a bottom-tier cleaner.”

“Tooru! That way of thinking isn’t good!”

“Shut up, I know that too. So what, you’re saying their attitude and way of thinking are ‘right’? Because they’re important, rich, and have status, it’s only natural for them to look down on people and act condescending? And my attitude is the one that has to be corrected?”

“That’s not—no, Tooru…”

“Why is it only me who has to swallow everything? Because they’re righteous and noble, and I’m a bottom-feeding guy worse than a worker ant, I should sell my soul? Half of it already belongs to you, and the other half’s been tainted by the Cursed Sword “Kagetsu.” Sold out. My soul’s already gone. Let go.”

“Ah—”

The instant he said let go, the hand gripping his arm loosened easily. It didn’t seem to be by Tia’s own will; she wore an expression like she herself didn’t understand why she’d released him.

But that didn’t matter.

Letting out a sharp click of his tongue, Tooru finally turned on his heel to walk away.

Exactly two meters ahead, a woman with a ponytail was kneeling on the floor in a full dogeza.

“…Huh?”

A question mark slipped out of his mouth at the incomprehensible sight.

Sensing his confusion, she spoke without lifting her face.

“I offer my sincerest apologies, Hayasaka-sama. I beg your forgiveness for the rudeness of one of my own. No—there is no need for you to forgive us. Please, at least allow me to show our remorse. I, Kagurazaka Chizuru, cannot allow such discourtesy to go unanswered without apology!”