I walked with Mika along the path to school. She was practically floating with excitement over the dungeons, but my own footsteps remained heavy as lead, weighed down by the "bomb" I was carrying. I looked around at the people we passed; some were scrolling through their phones to look up dungeon info, while others were chatting about this morning’s government broadcast. There wasn't a single sight to lift my gloomy mood.
I walked with Mika for a while, brushing off her constant questions about the dungeons, until we reached the intersection where we had to part ways since our schools were in different directions.
"See ya, Big Bro! You don't look so good, but hang in there at school!"
"Yeah. You too, Mika."
Mika waved and ran off energetically, though she soon spotted a friend and slowed down to walk and talk with her. Honestly, she was as high-spirited as ever.
Watching her go, I started the rest of my commute alone. As I got closer to school, I began to see more and more students wearing the same uniform as me.
"Yo, Daiki! Why the long face so early in the morning?"
"……Oh, Yuji. Morning."
"Morning. So, what’s eating you?"
The guy who’d called out to me in a booming voice was Yuji Hirose. He was in my class, a friend I’d made after starting high school. He had the sturdy, well-trained build of an athlete, but despite his looks, he was a member of the "go-home club" through and through. Apparently, his family ran a martial arts dojo and he was constantly being dragged in to help with instruction.
"It’s just that TV broadcast this morning…"
"Ah, that thing!"
"I mean, suddenly hearing about dungeons… The first thing I did was check the date on my calendar."
"Yeah, I hear you. My mind went blank for a second when I saw it, too."
Yuji nodded repeatedly in agreement, having clearly had a similar reaction to mine.
"But hey, it’s not like we’re going to be getting involved with dungeons ourselves anytime soon, right? You don't have to look so miserable."
"Well, that’s true, but Mika…"
I couldn't exactly tell him that a dungeon had appeared inside my desk drawer, so I used Mika as a cover story for now.
"Mika?"
"After she heard the news, her eyes were practically sparkling. She said she wanted to go visit a dungeon."
"Ah…"
Yuji grimaced as if he’d just realized the problem. Yeah, I thought so.
"She probably heard 'dungeon' and immediately thought of games or manga. But in reality, they’re bound to be incredibly dangerous, aren’t they?"
"Definitely. The broadcast said there are monsters and traps inside. If an amateur goes in there just out of curiosity, they’re going to die."
"Exactly. Even professional hunters occasionally die during hunts. Someone who’s never hunted in their life would just get killed by a monster and that’d be that."
"Yeah. You’d better give her a stern warning, Daiki."
The fact that even Yuji, who was at least a novice martial artist, agreed so readily reinforced my belief that entering a dungeon lightheartedly was suicide.
And yet, there would probably be idiots who wouldn't think that far ahead—people with groundless confidence who’d dive right in. I’d have to make sure to set Mika straight one more time.
"Of course."
We reached the school while we were chatting. The classroom was already full of students talking noisily about the dungeons. I eavesdropped on a few conversations, but most of them were asking where the dungeons were or saying they wanted to try entering one. Almost no one was talking about the risks.
Good grief, are these guys for real?
"Hey, Yuji. Don't you think the government handled the broadcast wrong? They should have emphasized how dangerous the dungeons are."
"Yeah, looking at this scene, I have to agree."
"I get being excited about a sudden fantasy element, but their sense of self-preservation is completely paralyzed."
I was seriously starting to worry about their sanity.
To put it bluntly, a dungeon appearing was like a piece of the deep, uncharted Amazon suddenly manifesting inside the country. We didn't know what kind of flora or fauna were in there, or what kind of pathogens might exist. I wanted to tell them to feel a bit of fear before they started cheering.
"Oh? Are you two also in the 'dungeons are dangerous' camp?"
"……Hiiragi-san."
The girl who spoke to Yuji and me as we stood by the back door was Yukino Hiiragi. She was a classmate known for her frameless glasses and black hair that reached down to the middle of her back.
We only spoke occasionally and weren't particularly close, so I wondered what she wanted.
"Everyone’s been like this for a while now. I understand the curiosity, but they’re clearly equating real dungeons with the ones from games and manga. I wish they’d stop to consider why the Self-Defense Forces were sent to blockade them instead of the police."
Hiiragi-san turned a weary gaze toward our classmates, who were still giddily discussing the topic. I understood. I understood exactly how she felt.
"Well, I’m sure everyone will calm down eventually…"
"I hope so."
"Well, for now, all we can do is wait and see."
Once we’d finished talking, we all nodded as if by some silent agreement and went to our respective desks. Ignoring the chatter around me, I took my textbooks out of my bag and put them in my desk drawer. Having finished that, I checked the clock above the podium; I still had a little time, so I pulled out my phone to keep gathering info.
When I accessed a certain massive bulletin board site, multiple dungeon-related threads had already been posted. Let's see… what do we have here?
《Dungeon Discussion Thread Pt. 15》
《I found a dungeon! I'm going in! Pt. 3》
《Dungeons are freaking bad news! Requesting immediate withdrawal! Pt. 2》
It looked like idiots had already started being idiotic. Why would they go in after being told so explicitly to stay away…?
Skipping the content, I skimmed the list of thread titles until I found one that caught my eye.
《Monster Slaying Strategy: Slime Edition》
That was a very specific topic. There were only a few participants and less than fifty posts, but I decided to take a look. Most of the comments were just people saying it was a waste of time to think of strategies for the weakest monster. The few actual suggestions were lazy, like "just stomp on it" or "throw a rock."
However, there was one interesting opinion among them.
"They look like viscous organisms, so maybe just sprinkle some salt on them… huh. Like a slug?"
It sounded like a wild theory, but maybe there was something to it. The slime in my drawer was definitely a watery, viscous object. Well, it couldn't hurt to try.
I spent a little more time scrolling through the boards until the chime rang for the start of class and our homeroom teacher walked in. I quickly tucked my phone into my pocket so it wouldn't get confiscated and straightened my posture.
"Alright, you lot! Get to your seats. Homeroom is starting."
At the teacher's bark, the classmates who had been gossiping about dungeons scurried back to their places. Once everyone was seated, the teacher cleared his throat.
"Most of you probably know by now, but it seems dungeons have appeared, just like that emergency broadcast said this morning. Personally, I think the whole thing is absurd, but there’s no reason the government would pull a prank like that on a national level, so we’d better treat it as the truth."
The teacher let out a long, weary sigh. That was the reaction of a sensible adult.
"Also, there will be an all-school assembly during the sixth period. Naturally, it’s about the dungeons."
"Did they find out something new!?"
"Not a thing."
"Ehh…"
The classroom erupted in groans of disappointment.
"What do you want from me? The information we have isn't much different from yours. But the Board of Education has instructed us to give you a stern warning so you don't do anything stupid."
Wow, he’s being incredibly blunt. Is he allowed to say that?
"Well, that’s that. Just remember there’s an assembly. Dismissed."
With that, the teacher hurried out of the classroom. The students started buzzing again, but since first period was about to start, nobody caused a scene.
Sigh.
In the end, the all-school assembly yielded nothing. The teachers just repeated the same lines: "Don't enter the dungeons" and "If you find one, call 110 immediately." It really was just a performance for the Board of Education, exactly like my teacher said.
Still, in the hours before the assembly, news had spread from people online who had ignored the warnings and entered dungeons only to become casualties. The dungeon fever had died down a little because of that. Of course, there were still some people who refused to give up on the idea of exploring them.
"Sigh…"
"What’s wrong, Daiki? Why the heavy sighing?"
"No, it’s nothing."
School being over meant I had to go home and face the dungeon inside my desk drawer. Just thinking about it made me sigh again. Why did I have to be the one dealing with this?
"Right. Well, I turn off here. Be careful on the way back."
"Yeah, see you tomorrow."
At the fork in the road, Yuji waved and headed off.
I walked the rest of the way home alone, stopping at the local supermarket. I headed to the seasoning section and picked up a one-kilogram bag of salt that was on sale for about a hundred yen. I didn't know if it would actually work on a slime, but it was worth a shot.
"I’m home…"
No reply. My father was always late because of work, but it was rare for my mother not to be here. I hadn't seen her at the supermarket, so maybe she was out elsewhere. Well, fine.
I headed toward my room—which now looked to me like a source of leaking miasma—carrying my school bag and my grocery bag.
……Maybe I should have gone to a shrine to get some purifying salt instead of buying the cheap stuff at the supermarket. Regretting my choice slightly, I opened the door and stepped inside.
"……Looking at it like this, nothing seems different."
It was my usual, ordinary room. It didn't look like a dangerous zone where a dungeon had manifested.
Praying that the dungeon had somehow vanished, I set my school bag and the salt on the desk and opened the drawer.
"……Yep, still there."
My hopes were dashed. The dungeon was still spread out inside the drawer, and the slime was still sitting right in the middle of the room below. It was wriggling its viscous body, asserting its presence.
However, considering it hadn't moved much since this morning, maybe monsters were restricted and couldn't leave the dungeon.
"Well, they say it’s worth a try, so here goes…"
I took the bag of salt out of the grocery bag and snipped the corner with some scissors from my desk. I aimed at the slime, tilted the bag, and poured the salt down into the dungeon.
The moment the salt touched the slime, the effect was instant. The slime began to writhe in agony, shrinking and expanding as it thrashed about. Its volume rapidly decreased. Once it had shrunk to less than half its original size, the black sphere in its center shattered, and the slime vanished into particles of light.
"……It actually worked. Was that thing really just a giant slug?"
Stunned by the unexpected effectiveness of the salt, I stood there staring at the empty space in the dungeon for a long time.