After exiting the dungeon and passing through the gate, we first made our way through the hygiene management area, which was equipped with container-type air showers and germicidal lamps.
For the record, the Joint Investigation Team from the Self-Defense Forces and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare had spent the six months leading up to the dungeon’s public opening thoroughly investigating the presence of viruses and other pathogens. They had ultimately concluded that no dangerous viruses existed.
However, since the depths remained untouched, these facilities were installed to account for the one-in-a-million chance. Every explorer who returned from a dive was required to use them without exception. Given the potential risk of a biohazard, I suppose such measures were unavoidable, but still...
"It’s like we’re being treated like pathogens," I muttered.
While wearing protective goggles, I walked slowly for over a minute through the purple-lit container, following the guidance lights as the air shower blasted me. I couldn't be blamed for thinking it felt like something straight out of a movie.
"You should be glad they didn't douse us in disinfectant," Yuji said.
"True. This level of precaution is far from what a real biohazard countermeasure would look like anyway," Hiiragi-san added.
"Well, I guess you're right. Sigh."
They were probably right. If the government were truly concerned about a biohazard, they wouldn't allow civilians to enter the dungeon even if public opinion demanded it. And even if they did permit it, they would at least mandate the use of hazmat suits; they wouldn't just go through the motions with simple facilities like this. After returning from a dive, we’d be whisked away to an isolation ward and detained for weeks for a battery of tests.
"Haa. Well then, Hiiragi-san. Shall we meet in the reception waiting area once we’ve changed?"
"Yes, that sounds fine."
Yuji and I parted ways with Hiiragi-san in front of the locker rooms and headed inside.
I opened my locker with the key I’d kept in my backpack. After wiping down my equipment—like my sword and armor—with wet wipes and storing them away, Yuji and I took our change of clothes and portable overnight kits to the coin showers located in the corner of the locker room. I had seen the stalls mentioned on the Dungeon Association's website, so I had prepared in advance. The space was surprisingly roomy, about a meter square, so it didn't feel cramped or claustrophobic. Looking at the coin slot, it cost 100 yen for five minutes. After checking the instructions, I inserted a coin and pressed the wash button. A high-pressure jet of water sprayed inside with a loud hiss, and the cleaning cycle finished in about ten seconds. It was my first time using a facility like this, and it was quite an impressive sight. I stripped off my jersey and immediately stepped inside with my kit.
I finished my shower within the time limit, changed back into the clothes I had worn to the facility, and left the changing area. Yuji had apparently just finished his as well, as he was stepping out of the stall while drying his hair with a towel.
"Hey, Yuji. How was it? It was my first time using a coin shower, but I thought it was pretty decent."
"Yeah. I thought it’d be cramped and annoying, but there were clever little touches everywhere. It was surprisingly comfortable."
"If I had to name one complaint, I wish they had hair dryers," I said, rubbing my damp hair with a towel. I suppose being able to take a shower at all in the middle of the mountains was a luxury, though. There was no end to it if I started looking for more.
"Why don't you put in a request at the reception later? If enough people ask, they might eventually install some coin-operated ones."
"I wonder. If they intended to have them, I think they would’ve been there from the start."
Still drying our hair, we headed back to the lockers. We packed our combat clothes and equipment into our shoulder bags and performed a quick maintenance check on Shiranui.
I drew Shiranui from its scabbard and held it up to the fluorescent lights on the ceiling.
"...No nicks in the blade."
"It is a gunto, after all. Unless it’s a total piece of junk, the blade isn't going to chip after just one use," Yuji said, checking his own weapons. He was right. It would be a problem if my primary weapon got nicked this easily. I’d possessed this sword while I was leveling up—albeit for a short time—so its durability and sharpness had been reinforced to some extent. Of course, the degree of reinforcement was nowhere near that of the tracksuit I’d used as my combat gear.
This was a side effect of leveling up without thinking deeply about my equipment until we decided to dive together. My own level had become too high, and because the EXP required for the next level up was so immense, I couldn't strengthen Shiranui much in such a short window. Therefore, Shiranui’s level of reinforcement was far lower than that of their weapons.
To be honest, it had reached a point where punching something with my bare hands was stronger than using Shiranui. But cutting a monster down with a blade was still slightly easier on the psyche than beating it to death with my fists.
"You should still resharpen it, though. If you slack on maintenance, it’ll come back to haunt you later," Yuji warned.
"I know. Juzo-san drilled that into my head."
Juzo-san had taught me how to sharpen a blade until I was sick of it. It took time, but I’d at least received a passing grade from the old man.
"Also, make sure you do a test cut after you sharpen it. Bad technique can actually make the edge duller."
I nodded silently.
It wasn't just limited to Japanese swords; any bladed tool would stop cutting if it was sharpened poorly. It had been quite a shock when I sharpened Shiranui for the first time and couldn't even slice through a radish during a test cut. Since then, I’d been practicing every day using the kitchen knives at home. Thanks to that, my mother frequently praised how sharp they were.
Once our brief maintenance was done, we tucked the weapons into our bags and left the locker room. There was no one in the waiting area except for the reception staff; the space was deserted.
"Now then, how should we kill time until Hiiragi-san comes out?"
"Should we just wait while having a drink?"
"..."
"..."
Setting our bags on the chairs in the waiting area, Yuji and I faced off in silence. Then, as if perfectly synchronized, we moved at the exact same moment.
"Rock-paper-scissors, shoot!"
I threw rock; Yuji threw paper. I lost.
"Ugh!"
"Yes!"
I stared at my fist in regret. We were, of course, deciding who would run to the vending machine corner to buy the drinks.
"I’ll take a Cola. Here, 160 yen."
"...Tch, fine. I’m going."
"Attaboy....Oh, right."
Yuji leaned in and whispered in my ear so no one else could hear.
"What about the skill scroll for the exchange center?"
"It’s already in my bag."
"Got it."
Yuji was just confirming our plan. Spending tens of thousands of yen in such a short period was a heavy blow for high school students, so we had agreed to raise some funds. Between my allowance and the New Year’s money I’d saved, I had drained my savings to get my equipment together.
So, I had decided to sell one of the surplus skill scrolls that had dropped in my home dungeon. We had checked the price list on the Association's website before entering and chose a type that was common enough to be in circulation but still worth a decent amount of money.
"Alright, I'll go get them."
Leaving Yuji to watch the luggage, I stepped out of the prefab warehouse. At the vending machine corner, I bought a coffee, a cola, and a lemon tea—the usual lineup based on our personal tastes.
When I returned, Hiiragi-san had finished changing and was sitting on a chair chatting with Yuji. Her hair was still damp from the shower, and she was busy patting it with a towel.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. Here you go."
"Oh, Daiki. Thanks for being the gofer."
"I lost at rock-paper-scissors, so what choice did I have? Here, Yuji, your Cola. And Hiiragi-san, this is yours. Lemon tea was okay, right?"
"Yes, thank you, Kokonoe-kun. I'll pay you back later."
I handed over the bottles. I sat down in an empty chair, popped the cap of my coffee, and took a sip. The pleasant bitterness spread through my mouth, and I finally let out a sigh of relief as the tension left my body. The other two looked just as relaxed.
"Still, we didn't run into as many monsters in the dungeon as I expected, did we?"
"True. We were diving since this morning... for nearly four hours?"
"In that time, we only encountered three monsters. Only three? Even for the first floor, isn't that far too few for a four-hour dive?"
Our conversation turned to the lack of monsters in the dungeon. The low encounter rate was definitely bothering us. As I thought about it, a hypothesis occurred to me.
"Could it be that the floor is way over its capacity for explorers?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, maybe among the explorers here right now, there are almost no people with the strength to dive past the surface floors."
I recalled the levels of the explorers loitering at the station this morning. I couldn't be certain back then because the sample size was small, but maybe the average level of civilian explorers in Japan was much lower than we’d assumed.
"If they can't dive any deeper, the explorers' hunting grounds will naturally concentrate on the surface floors," Hiiragi-san reasoned. "Unless there's a system where the respawn speed is proportional to the number of kills, most monsters will be hunted by the high density of explorers almost immediately after they respawn."
If that happened, then explorers wouldn't be able to gather the EXP needed to level up, which meant they would never become strong enough to move past the surface floors. Into a dungeon already stagnant with these explorers, more and more beginners were being poured in. The competition for monsters was bound to turn into a frenzy.
In other words, a perfect negative spiral had been established.
"Ah, I see. So that's why we didn't see many monsters..."
"In a dungeon that’s supposed to be crawling with monsters, finding one that actually has time to move away from its respawn point is the real rarity."
"It really is."
Faced with this depressing conclusion, we all held our heads and sighed.
If it had come to this, the government might need to put a limit on the number of people entering the dungeon just to train people capable of reaching the lower floors. Unless the explorers were dispersed across more floors, breaking this negative spiral was going to be difficult.
However...
"This isn't a game. You can't just throw your life away to learn a pattern. Since people can't risk their lives against high-level monsters to power-level, it's going to take a long, long time..."
"You're right. We only fought three monsters today, but if you factor in travel time, combat, and rest, killing dozens of monsters in a single day is practically impossible. If you push yourself, you'll just make a mistake and end up as monster food."
"Since the explorers' levels are low, they have no choice but to grind out large numbers of weak monsters... but those monsters aren't even there to hunt."
Silence fell over us. The more we thought about it, the more "game over" the whole situation felt.
This meant the "veteran" explorers with levels in the high single digits we saw at the station were likely the very first group who had managed to get a head start. To think that after nearly a month, the average person hadn't even reached level 10...
"Hey, our levels are—"
"Hirose-kun, don't say another word."
"..."
In hindsight, Hiiragi-san and Yuji were right—it was a good thing I hadn't leveled up to an even more excessive degree as a "safety margin." Since our lives were on the line, I had wanted to get as strong as possible, but since I didn't have a Status Camouflage skill scroll, I’d tried to avoid being too far removed from the average.
Even so, it turned out that the level I’d tried to suppress was already light-years beyond the average. But who could have predicted it? Who would have thought that after two months, the average explorer level still wouldn't have cracked 10?
"...For now, why don't we go exchange our drop items? Thinking about it here isn't going to change anything."
"...Yeah, you're right. Let's go."
"I agree. No use dwelling on it."
We decided to shelf the problem for now and go get our money.
Lately, it felt like I was shelving things more and more often. But it was also true that there was nothing ordinary high school students could do about a national crisis... Sigh. I downed the rest of my coffee in one go.
We gathered our things and left the prefab warehouse, moving to the adjacent building that housed the office and exchange center.