After passing through the gate, our first move was to stage a little performance to bridge the gap between our entry time and theirs. I caught Fuyuki-san’s eye and gave him the signal to begin.
"Alright, let's head into the dungeon."
With that, Fuyuki-san clicked on his headlamp. Kondo-san and I followed suit, switching ours on as well.
But...
"...Huh?"
"Hey, Tagawa. Your headlamp isn't coming on."
"Eh? Wait, what...?"
At Fuyuki-san’s prompting, I held my hand in front of the lens. No light hit my palm.
"Come on, is the battery dead? Didn't you check it beforehand?"
"I did. When I tested it in the locker room earlier, it worked perfectly..."
"...Fine. Just hurry up and swap the batteries."
"Ah, right. Sorry."
We stepped off to the side of the entrance and I pulled off the headlamp to start the swap. I fished spare batteries out of my waist pouch and loaded them in.
"Okay. That should... Hm?"
I clicked the power switch several times, but the lamp remained dark. I gave it a light shake, but it didn't even flicker. It wasn't just a loose connection.
"Hey, still not ready?"
"Ah, sorry. It won't turn on even with new batteries... Maybe it’s actually broken?"
"Broken? Didn't you bring a backup?"
"I did, but..."
"Then just use that one."
"Yes, sir..."
Under Fuyuki-san’s annoyed gaze, I put on my best apologetic face, slid my backpack off, and started rummaging through it. I pulled out the spare, confirmed it lit up properly, and finally swapped it onto my gear.
"Sorry for the wait..."
"Forget it. Just make sure you double-check your equipment next time."
"Y-Yes!"
I bowed to Fuyuki-san and Kondo-san, apologizing for the delay. As I hurried to shoulder my pack again, Kondo-san leaned in and placed a hand on my shoulder as if to comfort me, whispering in my ear.
"Tagawa-san. The fourteenth group just passed us."
"I see. I’d like to stretch this out longer, but any more stalling would look unnatural."
"I agree. Staff-san at the Entrance Gate has been glancing our way for a while now, so I think we should get moving."
"Understood."
I nodded my thanks to Kondo-san, adjusted my pack, and looked at Fuyuki-san. This "broken light" incident was a pre-planned delay tactic, but we’d reached the limit of how much time we could buy this way. We’d managed to stall a decent amount, but we’d need one more act...
"Alright, are we ready now? Let's move out."
Yes.
We waited for the fifteenth group—who were right on our heels—to pass through the entrance before finally stepping into the dungeon ourselves.
Once inside, we first looked over the map of the 1st floor that Fuyuki-san produced. This was an official map created by the Association in response to explorer demand; it had been sold for a fee since this spring, covering only the surface floors from the 1st to the 3rd. It was considered a must-have for dungeon-delving beginners. At 2,000 yen for a single floor, it felt a bit steep, but demand was high.
For the record, the one we were using was a copy we’d printed out after accessing the Association’s database at work yesterday.
"I want to reach the lower levels quickly today, so we'll take the shortest course... that okay with you guys?"
"Wait, the shortest course?" I asked.
"Hm? Is there a problem?"
"It's been a while since we've been in a dungeon. Shouldn't we take a lap around the 1st floor first?"
Because I’d raised an objection to Fuyuki-san’s insistence on the shortest path, we stopped to argue about the route. It was, of course, a performance. By making it look like we were bickering, we could kill even more time. The explorer teams behind us shot us annoyed looks as they bypassed our stationary group.
After a few minutes of staged bickering...
"Fuyuki-san, Tagawa-san. That was the nineteenth group. They should be up next, so can we please stop stalling and go? If we stay here, they're going to see us."
Kondo-san, who had been tracking the number of teams overtaking us, told us to wrap it up. Hearing that, Fuyuki-san and I stopped instantly. He folded the map and tucked it into his pocket.
"Understood. Let's at least reach the first junction. If we time it right, we can get behind them."
"Right, let's hurry."
"Yeah."
We moved down the corridor with a sense of urgency while staying alert. At the first fork, we took the path opposite the shortest route. Ducking behind the corner of the second junction, we peered out to see where our targets were headed.
And then...
"They turned down that path."
"I see. Are they planning to take the shortest route to the 2nd floor?"
"Who knows? But at least we’ve got a tail on them now. Let’s follow them, but stay sharp."
"Understood."
We slipped around the corner and followed them, taking care to stay out of sight.
As we maintained our surveillance, we began to see a scene that differed from our expectations.
"...They aren't stepping up to the front at all."
"Maybe they're training the sisters? Look, they aren't engaging directly, but they're giving instructions at every turn."
"So it seems..."
The sisters were at the front, leading the exploration, while our three targets stayed behind them, giving directions and watching the perimeter.
"That's essentially one-on-one coaching from A-rank explorers. Those girls are incredibly lucky..."
"No kidding..."
I didn't know how the sisters felt about it, but as Kondo-san said, it was a ridiculously extravagant training environment. With those guys protecting them, the chances of the sisters getting hurt on the surface floors were practically zero.
"I wondered why the reports said they hadn't achieved anything major since the area boss kill... but they were busy raising the next generation."
"Looks like it. But they're high schoolers, right? For kids that age, you'd think they'd charge straight into the middle floors to capitalize on the momentum of an area boss victory... They're unusual."
"You can say that again. Most teams that take down an area boss immediately make the middle floors their primary stomping ground. They really are different."
Fuyuki-san and I tilted our heads, puzzled by an exploration style that seemed far too mature for their age. Usually, explorers in their teens are more obsessed with racking up personal achievements. Especially for top-class explorers, the income from selling drop items is massive—easily exceeding the average annual salary of a corporate employee. Prioritizing someone else's training over your own exploration means letting those profits slip away.
That was what confused us. They were choosing a path that almost no one else would take.
"Ah! Fuyuki-san, Tagawa-san! Look!"
Kondo-san’s voice snapped us out of our contemplation. I shifted my focus back to the targets, and something caught my eye.
"Is that... a hound dog?"
"It is. Oh, the sister and Kokonoe-kun are stepping up."
"But he's staying back. Looks like the sister is taking the hound dog on herself. Fighting a monster alone... I could never do that."
Ahead of us, the target and his sister had moved ahead of the group to face the hound dog. The monster lunged at them, but then...
"Whoa, wait. What did he just do?"
Fuyuki-san’s stunned voice reached my ears. Neither I nor Kondo-san could answer him immediately. In front of us, the hound dog was letting out a shriek of pure agony—a literal scream—as it rolled frantically across the floor.
"It looked like he did something as they passed each other... but I can't tell from this distance."
"We'd have to get closer to know for sure."
"But if we get any closer, they'll spot us."
While we were debating, the hound dog stopped thrashing and went limp. Is it dead?
As I tried to tell if it was still breathing, the sister approached with her spear and drove it into the creature's neck.
"...I see. That method certainly ensures a massive safety margin for a novice."
"But that's..."
"In game terms, it's power leveling with high-level explorers."
We felt a strange sense of dissonance watching their training. Sure, it was safe and efficient, but it also made us wonder if they were just raising explorers who had no real skill of their own.
After the kill, the boy and his sister regrouped with the others for a brief review meeting. They used the Cleansing skill on her spear before continuing.
"They have Cleansing, too..."
"I think the reports mentioned they bought a skill scroll for it a while back."
"Yeah," I added. "The files for Kokonoe-kun and Hirose-kun noted they purchased it a few months ago."
"So that girl just used a dropped scroll to learn it herself? They've got decent luck, then."
"No kidding. Once people realized how useful Cleansing was, the demand spiked. It’s a premium skill now."
A Cleansing skill scroll was currently trading for nearly double its price from three months ago—somewhere in the neighborhood of two million yen.
Once the group had moved a safe distance away, we crept toward the spot where the monster had died to find out what had caused such a reaction.
"...Somewhere around here. Tagawa, Kondo-san, see anything?"
"See anything? Like what—"
"...Ah, Fuyuki-san! Over there!"
Kondo-san pointed not to where the hound dog had finally stopped, but to the spot where it had first failed its landing and begun to roll. There was a small splash of liquid on the floor.
Fuyuki-san leaned in to get a closer look at the spill—and then recoiled violently.
"...Gwah! What is this?! My nose! It burns!"
...!?
Kondo-san and I both lunged at Fuyuki-san, covering his mouth before he could yell. That was close. If he’d shouted like that, our cover would have been blown instantly.
Once he’d regained his composure, Fuyuki-san tapped our arms to let us know he was okay. We let go, and he took several deep breaths to steady himself before identifying the liquid.
"That's... that's probably some kind of insanely potent spicy seasoning. Just getting my face near it felt like my sinuses were being pierced. If a monster got that in its mouth... yeah, it would definitely be out of the fight."
"Spicy seasoning? You mean like those 'ultra-death' sauces that are supposedly hundreds of times hotter than Tabasco?"
"Most likely."
"Taking down monsters with hot sauce... How are we supposed to put this in the report?"
"Well, I guess we just have to write exactly what we saw..."
I had a feeling the resulting report was going to be very hard to believe. However, we didn't have the luxury of worrying about the paperwork right then.
"Fuyuki-san, Tagawa-san. Never mind the sauce, we’re going to lose them if we don’t move!"
Kondo-san’s warning made us snap our heads up. We could see the targets just about to disappear around a corner. We’d gotten way too distracted.
"Hurry! We can't lose them here!"
Yes!
We hurried after them, staying alert and being as quiet as possible.
From that point on, they continued their dominant run using those spicy seasonings. The effectiveness was undeniable. The sisters at the front didn’t take a single scratch. Over the course of three hours wandering the 1st floor, they fought about seven encounters, and the sisters handled every one of them with ease.
It turns out you can fight quite easily even as a novice if you use indirect tactics like that. I couldn't help but think that as I watched their silhouettes descend the stairs toward the 2nd floor.