It was less late at night than early morning—3:44 a.m.

At the mangled entrance to the Noumi Dungeon, Sadoyama Kouji gazed up at the still-dark sky with a cigarette between his lips, then let out a sigh as he looked at his phone, which kept announcing an incoming call.

After a brief hesitation, he drew the smoke into his lungs and exhaled it. The call showed no sign of giving up, and he frowned before finally answering.

“Yeah, yeah. Any normal person would be asleep at this hour, Nanami-chan.”

“Hello. Good work. What’s the situation over there?”

Hamamatsu Nanami showed no reaction at all to the joke laced with sarcasm and irony, simply saying what she wanted to say—or what needed to be said.

“We just finished rescuing the explorers who were still inside the Noumi Dungeon. They’d made it back to the upper layers on their own, so it was mercifully easy.”

“What about the damage to the dungeon branch office?”

“Completely smashed, and covered in hydra blood to boot. And as for casualties—amazingly, zero. Apparently it was the day Anthem was scheduled to re-enter the Kamioka Dungeon, so everyone had clocked out on time. That’s what I heard from the explorers we rescued, anyway.”

“That’s good to hear.”

She said it like it had nothing to do with her—but in truth, it didn’t, so it was only natural. Sadoyama drew in another breath of smoke and exhaled it along with a sigh.

“Well, well. Just what you’d expect from an A-rank explorer clan backed by the state. They got saved last time, saved again this time, and somehow still didn’t accomplish anything of note. If you ask me what their ‘results’ were, it feels like all they did was cause trouble. Hah, impressive stuff. Ha, ha, ha.”

“You’re really laying on the sarcasm. We’re the ones who got dragged into this mess. I mean, seriously—what was with that walking disaster?”

Her voice carried irritation—no, rather, fear.

That alone eased Sadoyama’s irritation just a little.

Thanks to their long acquaintance, he understood that she wasn’t genuinely unhappy about being dragged in. It was bravado on her part, more than anything.

“Hey now. I told you before, didn’t I? Hayasaka-kun isn’t a bad kid. He’s got a solid head on his shoulders. Don’t tell me—you went and ticked him off?”

“…Back in the morning, he looked like he was just going to leave.”

Nanami said it the same way she used to when, back when they were in the same clan, she admitted a mistake she herself already understood.

Not long ago, Sadoyama had thought they’d both grown up. And precisely because of that, he could say this: even after growing up, you don’t change all that much from who you were as a kid. It’s just that once you’re an adult, the people around you stop treating you like a child, and you’re forced to put on an adult face. He felt he wore a reasonably decent mask—but unfortunately, you can’t see your own mask while you’re wearing it.

Because of that, Sadoyama could easily imagine what kind of expression Hamamatsu Nanami had on her face right now.

What inevitably came to mind was the girl she used to be.

…Well, maybe it had been endearing when she was a girl, but doing it now that she was a grown adult was something he really wished she’d stop.

“So, Nanami-chan—did you step on one of Hayasaka-kun’s landmines?”

“…I admit I was rude to him, but… come on. Paying attention to the dragon-slaying swordswoman instead was unavoidable, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know what kind of attitude you took with him, but in the end, he still dove into the Kamioka Dungeon with you. Then he put down the Dungeon Stampede at the Sugai Dungeon, turned right around, came back to Noumi, and sliced that bastard hydra to pieces. Sounds like a win to me.”

“In the end… yes.”

“By the way, one of our branch office girls—Kawai-chan—apparently slapped him with a false accusation and kept up a bad attitude even after it was cleared. But she didn’t get any kind of revenge taken on her.”

“Wha—!?”

Sadoyama laughed outright at the perfectly predicted reaction.

Given what Hayasaka Tooru was like now, falsely accusing him would be suicidal—far too tasteless to pass as a joke.

But just a few days ago, Hayasaka Tooru had been little more than a cleaner, not even qualifying as a D-rank explorer. Of course, that didn’t mean it was okay to treat him carelessly—but it was true that he wasn’t someone people felt the need to be considerate toward. And that kind of treatment had probably been his everyday life.

Days when no one respected him.

And yet he hadn’t grown bitter, and he’d lived without causing trouble for others.

Shouldn’t that alone have been worthy of praise?

“I mean… someone with no real ability lucking into a legendary item, getting power handed to them on a silver platter, then starting strutting around and getting full of themselves—I wouldn’t say it was common, but it did happen every now and then, right?”

Back when Nanami had still been an explorer, the sort of “lucky boys” she was talking about did show up from time to time. Most of them either got carried away and died after biting off more dungeon than they could chew, or failed to recognize who the truly strong were and self-destructed as a result.

But still.

Sadoyama let out an exaggerated sigh, thought for a moment, and then spoke.

“You know, that’s exactly why you topped out at B-rank, Nanami-chan. Or what—did your instincts rust away while you were busy being an idol manager? He’s decisively different from the kind of guys we used to see.”

“…Different how?”

“Hayasaka-kun looked bored, sure, but he wasn’t getting carried away. He didn’t have that attitude of ‘I’m strong now,’ ‘I’ve got power,’ ‘there’s nobody who can order me around.’ I’d bet money on it—holy sword and cursed sword or not, he’d have acted the same way in that meeting.”

“…That might be true.”

“You told me you ‘wouldn’t hold back,’ but I can’t keep covering for my junior forever either. Being a manager for idol explorers doesn’t mean being an overdemanding parent, you know.”

“…Those kids are hope.”

“I get where you’re coming from, given the past. But what does that feeling of yours have to do with Hayasaka-kun, who keeps getting looked down on? Well, he seems surprisingly kind for how he looks, so I doubt he’d deliberately act against you or Anthem. But that wouldn’t be consideration for you—it’d be his own pride.”

“Pride…?”

“I told you, didn’t I? He’s a kid with principles. He never once said anything like, ‘I’ve suffered this much, so I should be allowed to do this much.’ If he did, I’ll apologize and take it back—but what do you think? You, Nanami-chan, still dragging around your own unhappy past.”

“……”

There was no reply, but Sadoyama sighed anyway, figuring that surely it had gotten through this much. If not, then frankly, it was none of his business anymore.

He’d seen overconfident idiots self-destruct countless times. He didn’t want that to happen to a former comrade—but there were limits.

“As far as I’m concerned, Hayasaka-kun isn’t scary. The dragon-slayer, on the other hand—that one’s terrifying, since I’ve got no idea what kind of common sense she uses to judge things. By the way, Nanami-chan, did you really call just to vent like this?”

“…I did have a report, a notification, and something to consult about…”

“And the venting.”

“That nitpicky side of yours really hasn’t changed, Senpai.”

“And your spoiled side hasn’t changed either, Nanami-chan”

“Our Irselia is staying over at Hayasaka Tooru’s place.”

“Huh?”

This time, Sadoyama couldn’t help but react a bit more strongly.

But it wasn’t like that made Nanami happy. After all, Anthem’s joker had gone for an overnight stay in the house of someone Nanami called a “walking disaster,” so she must have been at her wits’ end.

“Well, putting that aside—I mean, there’s no point worrying about it. There’s no way to control that elf anyway. She’s cooperating with Anthem purely out of goodwill and curiosity, after all. She is an S-rank explorer. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there’s nothing we can do when she decides to act on her own. Yes, it was my responsibility that Hayasaka-san got angry because of Irselia. I didn’t stop her when she insisted on coming along to that meeting. Still, I really wish he hadn’t blown up before we even got to talk about compensation—and honestly, I don’t understand why staying over was suddenly okay when he was that mad.”

“You’re talking pretty fast…”

“Thanks to Hayasaka Tooru, our members are a complete mess. Chizuru is basically useless right now, Megumi is depressed, and Airi is… well, normal, I guess.”

“You are factoring in the part where Hayasaka-kun saved your lives, right?”

“I am! That doesn’t mean I’m going to start worshipping him. It’s just that… um… at some point, I want to apologize properly. That’s an important matter in its own right, but enough already—let’s get to the real issue, Sadoyama-senpai.”

Finally, he thought, but he held his tongue. If he teased her, this would go nowhere. Back when they’d explored dungeons in the same clan, he felt like he’d usually done the same thing.

He couldn’t support her the way he used to, but that couldn’t be helped anymore. They were both adults now. When the time came, you paid the price for your own actions.

“According to the dragon-slaying swordswoman Tia, the Kamioka Dungeon was erased by Prefectural Assemblyman Sasamori Takeshi. In fact, Sasamori was found by Tia near the vanished dungeon entrance and was secured by her. He’s currently being detained on our end. At ten a.m., officials from the Dungeon Agency will be dispatched to conduct a full interrogation.”

“Erased? How?”

Whether a prefectural assemblyman or a member of the National Diet, he was, at the end of the day, an ordinary civilian below even D-rank. How could someone like that erase an entire dungeon?

“For now, according to his own testimony—or rather, his delusions. He claims that a man from the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office came to his office and handed him a stone that could make a dungeon disappear.”

“Huh? No, wait… but is that really a delusion? The Kamioka Dungeon actually is gone, right? There’s no way Sasamori himself had any means to erase a dungeon. Given that, isn’t it natural to assume a third party gave him the ‘means’?”

“That’s exactly it! It’s delusional, and yet it makes sense! That’s what’s so strange!”

“The Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office… let’s see… yeah, that’s what you mean. That’s an awfully distant organization for the chief of a provincial city’s dungeon division.”

“It’s distant even for me, and I’m a national civil servant. I belong to the Dungeon Agency, after all. If, by some chance, Sasamori’s testimony is accurate, then this would amount to a government-orchestrated Dungeon Stampede. And to make matters worse, Tia blurted out on stream that Sasamori was the culprit! I checked—it’s clearly on the broadcast! You might not get the gravity of it, Senpai, since you’re bad with social media, but it’s already a top trend!”

“Uh… so, basically, it’s turned into what you’d call a ‘flaming’?”

“It has! We need to present an explanation that makes sense to the general public! Given the circumstances, Anthem and the Dungeon Agency will probably put out a message first, and then we’ll get a press conference from the Prime Minister! Neither the major media nor social media can be predicted at all! And it’s already a madhouse as it is!”

“Oof. That’s… something else.”

His reaction came out sounding oddly detached, but the scale of the situation had jumped so far beyond him that Sadoyama could no longer muster any sense of personal involvement.

At this point, decisions from “above” would determine the fate of Sadoyama and Kawai Sakiho alike. To be blunt, there was nothing he could do.

He’d probably get summoned to some troublesome venue eventually, but—

“So, did the esteemed national civil servant from the Dungeon Agency actually confirm things with the Cabinet? You know—‘We’ve heard that someone claiming to be from the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office gave a prefectural assemblyman a dungeon-sealing item. Is this true?’”

“There’s no way I could do that! What would we do if it was true!? And even if it were, do you really think they’d say, ‘Oh yes, that was one of our people’!?”

“Well, sure, but you’re still going to clean up after this ‘flaming,’ right? What kind of coordination are you—ah, no. Never mind. I don’t want to hear about that.”

“You chickened out, Senpai.”

“When you sense danger, you withdraw. Explorer common sense.”

“Please be sure to tell that to Hayasaka Tooru.”

A long, heavy sigh echoed through the line. He could understand how she felt, but he had no intention of reading between the lines and offering comfort.

“Oh, right—Nanami-chan. That huge thing that appeared during the Sugai Dungeon Stampede. I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I recorded it on video. That tie-pin camera of mine isn’t half bad. I’ve got the data saved to the cloud, so I’ll share it with you later.”

“You really thought to record it?”

“We were desperate on our end. I didn’t think we were getting out alive, so I needed to leave at least some data behind. I checked the footage of the Noumi hydra too, and just like that one, the orochi in the Sugai Dungeon was on a level even A-rank explorers couldn’t handle. Even back when I was active, if we’d gone in as a clan, it would’ve been impossible.”

That was what it meant to be completely outmatched.

A monster that blew away even the mana defenses of a former A-rank like Sadoyama with the aftershock of its charge would, by any measure, rank at the upper end of S-rank.

The fact that the damage had been limited to this extent was nothing short of a miracle.

If Hayasaka Tooru hadn’t been there, both the orochi and the hydra would surely have been rampaging through the city by now, creating devastation on a scale not seen since the Chain Stampede. In the time it would have taken to scrape together high-rank explorers from everywhere, an entire city might have been wiped out—and they would have been forced into a worst-case raid battle.

When that happens, what proves invaluable in planning operations is information about the enemy.

Even if only a little, information on orochi needed to be left behind—preserved.

No matter what.

Even so, it was likely that several precious high-rank explorers would have been sacrificed. Just thinking about the economic loss represented by the dungeon materials they would have brought back was enough to make one dizzy, and the impact on society caused by the loss of their very existence—the shift in public consciousness—was something he didn’t even want to contemplate.

“Hayasaka-kun’s in for a rough time from here on out…”

The cigarette had burned down almost to the filter without him noticing. He pinched it between his fingers, incinerated it with magic, and let out a sigh.

“We’re having a rough time on our end too. The S-rank explorer clan we called will probably arrive later than the Dungeon Agency staff. I also called the ‘Teacher.’ Once the officials arrive, you’ll probably get contacted as well, Senpai—so stay awake and wait, okay?”

Having said her piece, the call cut off.

Had his former comrade changed, or not? With a wry smile, Sadoyama slipped the now-silent phone into the inner pocket of his suit. For the moment, he took out a fresh cigarette and lit it with fire magic.

Back then—he had simply challenged dungeons, grown stronger, brought back materials, acquired new equipment, and then dived into dungeons again, over and over.

Now it was all about social contribution this, public sentiment that, worrying over what the upper echelons thought and how they’d react.

If growing up was boring, then that was probably his own problem alone. Sadoyama didn’t want to think of himself as having become a boring adult—but even so, it was hard to say he was in an environment he enjoyed.

Even though he’d chosen it himself.

Even though it wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.

“Heh… society’s the problem. Yeah—society.”

In the end, he muttered such a flimsy excuse to himself and started walking.

The eastern sky had begun to glow a purplish hue. Whether dungeons went on rampages or a cursed sword cleaved a monster in two, the sun went about its work just as it had yesterday.

The time was approaching four in the morning.

Figuring it wouldn’t hurt to get a little sleep, Sadoyama headed off.