For Tooru, his first proper fight against a monster had been the black ogre in the hidden floor.
He didn’t know that monster’s exact rank, but at the time it had been an opponent he could only run from. And yet, now—for some reason—he had a firm conviction that something on that level would be fine.
That was despite the fact that everything he’d actually defeated up until now had been nothing but low-tier D-rank trash.
The furballs, giant rats, and demi-goblins he’d literally swept away during his daily cleaning work were the sort of things that vanished if you hit them once—true fodder. To be blunt, they weren’t even much of a threat as monsters. If he’d gone around bragging that he’d “fought monsters” based on that, he would’ve been laughed at—maybe even pitied.
I’m not an explorer.
That was how he’d lived his life, believing that.
And yet—
With the blunt weapon made of bundled, welded rebar slung over his shoulder, Tooru calmly watched the two demonic wolves leaping straight at him. Thinking that they were definitely weaker than the black ogre, he shifted his body half a step aside and swung the club down.
A heavy thud echoed through the corridor, and one of the demonic wolves was smashed flat against the floor.
The other failed to fully track Tooru because of the dodge timing, snapping uselessly at empty air—only to be caught by Tooru’s follow-up swing, the club smashing up into its belly from below. It slammed into the ceiling once, fell back down, and almost immediately had its head crushed.
Of course, it was Tooru himself who crushed it.
His body moved almost automatically—or so it felt.
And yet, at the same time, it was undeniably his own body, moving exactly as he intended. It left him with a strangely contradictory sense of certainty.
“That was easy, Tooru!”
Ignoring Tia, who came bounding up in an unusually good mood, Tooru crouched down and picked up the magic cores left behind after the wolves dissipated.
The magic cores he usually collected during cleaning jobs were about the size of beads or grains of sand. A demonic wolf’s core, by contrast, was about as big as a thumbnail. From Tooru’s perspective, it was huge.
“…Well, for now at least, it looks like it works.”
“Um—there’s a comment asking if you really couldn’t get an explorer license. And also… this is your first time actually fighting monsters, right, Tooru-san?”
Anthem’s leader, Saitou Megumi, had approached him as she said that.
“Ah! Me! Can I talk too?”
Probably not because she’d sensed how much of a hassle explaining things would be for him, but Tia raised her hand and bounced a little as she looked toward the camera.
“Eh—ah, yes. Of course.”
Thrown off by Tia’s overwhelming friendliness, Megumi nodded, her expression looking faintly relieved.
She was probably uncomfortable dealing with Tooru.
On that point, Tooru felt the same—he wasn’t especially eager to interact either—so he accepted it as mutual. His communication skills weren’t nearly good enough to casually chat on stream with someone who had a massive fanbase, while those fans were watching.
“It’s probably because Tooru’s soul is connected to the holy sword. What was it called again—mana affinity? He probably didn’t have much of that to begin with, but once his soul connected to the holy sword, something like his capacity to receive mana expanded a lot. I was just an ordinary person before I picked this up too, you know.”
“A holy sword…?”
“Yeah. The Holy Sword Lightbringer. A sacred weapon said to have been forged inside an ancient dragon after spirits gathered stardust together. It connects to the owner’s soul and refuses to be used by anyone else. How should I put it—its passive effects are being applied to Tooru.”
While Tia went on, clearly enjoying herself as she explained, Tooru casually checked Anthem’s stream.
He’d joined the broadcast by answering Megumi’s question, but not being able to see how the viewers were reacting felt a bit awkward.
“Seeing Tia-chan all smug is adorable.”
“She’s weirdly friendly. The temperature gap is huge since Tooru-bro’s kind of socially awkward.”
“Also, I’ve never even heard of the Holy Sword Lightbringer.”
“Bro pulling out his terminal, lol.”
“Tooru-bro, you watching? If you are, wave at the camera.”
It seemed he might have finally graduated from being called worksite bro.
Feeling a little pleased, Tooru raised the hand that wasn’t holding the blunt weapon and gave the camera a small wave. The moment he did, a wave of intense embarrassment hit him, but what was done was done.
“Tooru-bro’s reading the comments!”
“LOL.”
“He’s choosing to look at us instead of talking to Anthem, lmao.”
“Is what Tia-chan’s saying actually true?”
“How is it, Tooru-dono? I myself am still not accustomed to this culture of streaming, but doesn’t it feel reassuring to hear voices from outside even while we’re in a dungeon like this?”
Kagurazaka Chizuru slid closer as she spoke. Perhaps she agreed with the sentiment, because Midou Airi—who was near the camera—smiled and nodded as well.
“Uh… I don’t really get it, but… when I was working as a cleaner, I just muttered to myself all the time, so this feels kind of fresh.”
“Muttering to yourself…?”
“Oh? Tooru-san—do you have your own personal channel?”
Picking up on a comment, Megumi spoke up in surprise.
When Tooru checked his terminal, it seemed that by last night, people had already identified the channel where he’d been recording his dungeon cleaning work. He was honestly impressed that the internet had managed to find such a tiny, obscure channel.
“Well, it’s just for records…”
“In that case, you might consider working as an exploration streamer from now on. You look like talking is a hassle for you, Tooru-san, but Tia-san seems like she’d have fun chatting, doesn’t she?”
Megumi’s phrasing was a bit sharp, but she didn’t seem to mean any harm. What she said was too accurate to get angry over.
If anything, just looking at Kagurazaka Chizuru made it obvious—weren’t these girls rather sheltered?
Thinking that way made a lot of things click into place.
To them, Tooru was “the person who saved us” and “the person helping us,” not “someone we’re making use of.” If anyone did see him that way, it would be Anthem’s manager, Hamamatsu Nanami—but rather than a sense of entitlement, it might simply be an overdeveloped desire to protect the members.
If he thought of her as a kind of monster parent, there was a certain consistency to the behavior of that otherwise highly competent manager. Trying to shift the responsibility of an expedition—which should have been borne by the explorers themselves—onto the client city S might have been the result of excessive protectiveness… or something like that.
Even if that guess was right, it didn’t make him think, well, then it can’t be helped.
There were probably all sorts of things going on.
But he didn’t owe anyone the consideration to dwell on them. If he got truly pissed off, he could just snap and go home—that was enough for him. Of course, as long as that didn’t happen, he intended to see things through properly, since he was being paid…
He just had no intention of selling off a soul that was already sold out any further than that.
“Uh… for now, if we get through today’s expedition safely, and your fans don’t try to set me on fire, I’ll think about it.”
“LOL, scared of getting flamed.”
“That’s just because of those loud unicorns on SNS.”1
“Most viewers are grateful to you, Tooru-bro, for saving the Anthem members, you know.”
“But yeah, focusing on what’s right in front of you makes sense.”
“It’s a mutated dungeon investigation. Can’t let your guard down.”
“Ahaha. Then I guess I should tell the viewers not to roast Tooru-san. Hey everyone, please! He’s our benefactor, after all.”
“Well, as far as saving you goes, I got paid and got a license, so we’re even. Acting like a benefactor forever would just be annoying, right?”
“…I don’t believe Tooru-dono has acted like a benefactor even once, to begin with…”
Chizuru said that with a troubled look, and the viewers voiced their agreement.
If that had been enough to put him at ease, it would have been nice—but he was still being glared at by the high-and-mighty elf, so he didn’t really feel like smiling cheerfully.
◇◇◇
The expedition proceeded smoothly.
From the first floor through the tenth—the “upper levels”—no discrepancies with the existing maps were found, and any monsters encountered along the way could be handled without issue by any of the members. Tooru also smashed several monsters to death with his rebar club, but none of them felt particularly threatening.
As an aside, as he was picking up the magic cores left behind by the vanishing monsters as usual, the healing mage Midou Airi deliberately showed him her magic bag. The kind of bag familiar from fantasy fiction, with an absurd internal capacity. Apparently, the magic bag she’d brought this time could hold about the equivalent of five cargo-train containers.
“That’d cost tens of millions if you bought one, probably.”
“I heard S-rank explorers carry bags with even more capacity.”
“I mean, Chizuru’s katana probably costs around fifty million too, right?”
Come to think of it, once you reached A-rank as an explorer, it was only natural that all your equipment and belongings would be top-of-the-line.
For some reason, both Saitou Megumi and Midou Airi were dressed in skirts with leggings—probably because they were consciously maintaining their idol-like image. Chizuru, on the other hand, wore military-style pants and boots, with her sword at her waist, hung from a strangely modern-looking belt, giving off a very clear combatant impression. The elf Irselia was dressed the same way she’d been at the hotel, carrying a folding magic bow slung over her back like a one-shoulder bag.
“Well, yeah. Gear is directly tied to survival, after all. That said, it’s not like you can go around in full plate armor either. I use a greatsword, so I want to stay as light as possible.”
“The stuff the Anthem members are wearing—that’s Nine Line exploration gear, right?”
“Yeah, that brand’s basically the go-to for explorers.”
“The Kujo heiress is pretty entertaining too.”
“If its normal clothes, you’ll get a fanservice scene just from moving around a bit.”
“Huff, huff… uh, is it okay if I go to the bathroom?”
“Exactly. Nine Line’s exploration outfits are a lifesaver. When people like us move whoosh like that, normal clothes just can’t handle it. Oh, right, speaking of which—”
Megumi, who was bantering with the live chat, seemed well accustomed to it. While keeping an eye on both the exploration and the stream, she smoothly pulled the quieter Midou Airi into the conversation, then followed the flow of comments to rope in Irselia, and occasionally tossed a question Tooru’s way.
She really did seem like the kind of cheerful extrovert who was always carrying extra burdens, Tooru thought again.
When someone like that left a group, the remaining extroverts usually ended up as a bunch of strong-willed idiots who tore each other apart from the inside—that was almost a rule. He had seen it in middle school, and plenty of times in high school too—though he’d dropped out. Anthem didn’t really feel like that kind of extrovert clique, which was probably a relief for Saitou Megumi. Well, that was pure prejudice on his part.
As an aside, Tia didn’t need to be prompted at all—she jumped into conversations like a friendly dog with no sense of shyness, to the point that she actually flustered Megumi. From Tooru’s perspective, it was a blessing, since it reduced how often the conversation was directed at him.
He had said a few things to Tia in the hotel lobby, but that didn’t mean he was still angry. Not at all. If asked whether he disliked her now, he’d shake his head. He had no intention of telling her, but he even found her sense of justice kind of admirable.
It was like watching rain quietly fall outside from inside the house. It didn’t feel bad to look at—but that didn’t mean he wanted to step out and get soaked.
There would probably be moments again when they didn’t see eye to eye. When that happened, they could clash again then—that was how Tooru half-dismissively thought about it.
Someday, a fatal rift might open up. Or maybe Tia would get fed up with him and retreat back into the sword. But for now, that hadn’t happened.
If it did—would he feel relieved?
He couldn’t say, since it hadn’t happened yet. But losing the chance to see Tia’s face light up with pure delight over a canned coffee drink felt… a little regrettable.
Then again, if that was how he felt, why did he act the way he did? He couldn’t help but think that himself.
In any case.
Thanks to all that, they cleared the upper levels without difficulty.
Starting from the eleventh floor—the “middle layer”—differences from the existing maps began to appear, and their exploration speed clearly dropped. Since the outside team was mapping based on the routes Tooru’s group actually walked, Midou Airi—who was handling communications with the support team—started giving instructions like “go back a bit” more frequently.
“The technology in this world is amazing, Tooru. Staying in contact with the outside while walking through a dungeon, and having people out there draw the map—it’s something I never could have imagined.”
As Tia voiced her fresh amazement, Tooru gave a vague shrug.
“Explorers without this kind of heavy support probably can’t do it. Big enough clans might have support staff, but nobody’s doing that for free. From the perspective of the people actually risking their lives down here, handing over a cut to someone who isn’t putting their body on the line might feel a little unfair.”
“The reward-splitting problem, huh. That’s a classic.”
“I don’t know if it’s really that common,” Tooru said flatly.
“Come to think of it, you were solo the whole time, right, Tooru?”
The way Tia spoke was just like always, as if she wasn’t bothered at all by what had happened that morning. Whether she truly didn’t care was impossible to know—but at the very least, it didn’t seem like she’d written Tooru off because of it.
“…So, hypothetically, if we did a dungeon-stream together, should we split the rewards fifty-fifty?”
“Hahaha! Of course not. I’m a spirit bound to the Holy Sword, and the sword’s owner is you, Tooru. That means I belong to you. So all the rewards should go to you. If you want to occasionally share a little treat with me with that money, I won’t complain. See? I’m a very convenient woman, aren’t I?”
“If you weren’t using half of my soul.”
Apparently, this little exchange had been perfectly captured on camera, because the live chat suddenly erupted.
“Unbelievably enviable.”
“Wait a sec. If Tia-chan belongs to Tooru-bro, does that mean if I make Tooru-bro mine, then maybe…?”
“Maybe nothing, dude.”
“Tooru-bro keeps his normal tone when talking to Tia-chan, lol.”
“Tooru-bro trembling in front of Anthem, lol.”
“Being scared of a scandal basically means you’re scared of us.”
“FYI, B-rank and below explorers rarely enter unexplored dungeons, so mapping isn’t really necessary for them.”
“Low-level explorers without MPS get lost more often, right?”
“MPS…?”
“It’s a GPS-like magical device—Magic Positioning System, MPS. Standard on the stream cameras too,” said Midou Airi, who had silently appeared beside him with her usual calm smile, responding to Tooru’s muttering.
“Oh… got it. Thanks,” Tooru murmured.
“Many commenters are also asking—are you still not used to us? You could loosen up a bit more, you know,” Airi added.
“Ah… well, I’m a bit shy,” Tooru replied.
“Why is Bro the hardest to conquer here, lol.”
“If he gets invited to return home together, he’d probably hate the idea because of rumors, lolol.”
“Even Unicorns will be confused by this.”
“Open up more, Tooru-bro.”
“Shut up, you guys. Try facing a bunch of idol-like people. You can’t even tell which line’s overstepping,”
“No, no, no, don’t open up to US, lol.”
“Tooru-bro suddenly turning frank, lol.”
“Hehe. You can speak to us in roughly that tone,” Airi said.
“Yeah, no way,” Tooru said flatly.
“I see… that’s unfortunate,” Airi replied, lowering her eyebrows as if genuinely disappointed.
Tooru, however, knew there was no way he could suddenly ask to speak casually now, so he had to let her disappointment slide.
And so, they continued mapping the dungeon carefully, and the mid-layer passed without any real difficulty. Before they knew it, eight hours had gone by since they began.
For ordinary workers, this would be well past the legal workday, and it’s hard to imagine anyone walking around and fighting monsters for eight straight hours. Yet none of Anthem showed signs of fatigue—and neither did Tooru.
Even when he had been a dungeon cleaner, or more recently, he didn’t feel that exhausted, but he still felt some fatigue. But now, he felt… nothing at all.
“This feels weird… I’ve been walking around this much, but my legs don’t hurt at all.”
“That’s because of the Holy Sword’s blessing. It has an automatic healing effect. Even minor injuries heal instantly.”
“Alright, that’s fine for me… but what about the Anthem members?”
“Well, we’re… used to it,” Megumi replied with a wry smile. Airi and Chizuru nodded normally, while Irselia just shrugged in mild exasperation.
“These girls were raised to be dungeon-exploring elites. They’re trained enough that they could stay in a dungeon for a full week without issue. They haven’t spent their days hunting small fry on the upper floors like you.”
“To say ‘it should be easy for you because it’s so hard for me’… that never ends well. High-and-mighty elves might not get it, but everyone has their own joys and hardships. When anyone other than the person themselves says ‘it shouldn’t be hard,’ it rarely ends well.”
“Hmph. So you want me to say, ‘Thank you for your daily dungeon cleaning. That must’ve been tough.’ How ridiculous.”
“Don’t twist my words. No one has the right to judge another’s life as easy or hard. Oh, so the noble elf does? Then I guess I should apologize for living a trivial life. Hah—trivial, trivial. Didn’t even have a single family member survive, yet it was trivial.”
“W-wait! W-w-wait, Tooru! We’re on a live stream!”
“Irselia, don’t start picking fights too! You want to see me bow down again?”
“Suddenly snapping, lol.”
“Out of nowhere with that trolling skill.”
“The chemistry is terrible, lol.”
“Stop making Tia-chan and Chii-chan worry.”
“To be able to argue face-to-face with Irselia, Tooru’s got guts, lol.”
“I’m giving my vote to Tooru.”
“Hm… this is even.”
“Wait, didn’t she say ‘again’? Has she already bowed before?”
“Ah…”
Tooru shut his mouth, scratching his head, realizing he’d messed up—but what was said was said. He glanced at Megumi, the leader, who had raised a hand in front of her face in a ‘sorry’ gesture, so it didn’t feel like he was solely at fault.
“Let’s leave the philosophical debates to the viewers for now—everyone, we’re approaching the boss room on floor fourteen.”
Unexpectedly, or perhaps not, Airi cut the awkward tension by pointing down the corridor. The Anthem members and the viewers alike tensed up immediately, and Tooru’s exchange with Irselia was effectively forgotten.
For Tooru, this was just the boss room he had never “entered” before, only used on the way back. But for Megumi, Chizuru, Airi—and the camerawoman Sanagi—it was a place that carried trauma. A place where they had nearly died, nearly given up, and had to steel themselves.
“Let’s go, everyone,” said Megumi.
“Don’t worry. Whether it’s a dragon or a black knight, those two of you won’t get a turn. I won’t put my companions in danger,” Irselia added firmly.
They opened the door to the boss room—and found… nothing.
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