I tossed my mechanical pencil onto the desk, closed my notebook, and straightened my hunched back with a long, satisfying stretch.
"It’s over...!"
The words spilled out of my mouth naturally, heavy with the weight of a thousand emotions.
After clashing with them alongside my friends and overcoming every trial and tribulation, I had finally conquered those formidable foes. Those troublesome enemies being...
"I finally finished my summer homework...!"
Yes, summer homework. Honestly, it was a truly monstrous opponent. The content itself wasn't that difficult since it stayed within the scope of what we’d learned in the first semester, but the sheer volume was staggering. I mean, making an entire workbook the mandatory assignment for almost every subject... what were they thinking? On top of that, we had book reports and research papers to write. When I first saw the pile, I couldn't help but stare blankly into the distance, wondering if it was even physically possible to finish it all during summer vacation.
Looking away hadn't changed reality, though.
"We managed to clear the workbooks by dividing the tasks among everyone, but the reports... those were just soul-crushing."
Reports required looking up books and online resources one by one before writing, so we couldn't exactly split the workload. I had to track down the specific books on the list, read them cover to cover, and then distill what I’d learned into a legible, well-organized paper. It took me twice as long to finish those as it did the workbooks.
Since these were required for multiple subjects, it was an absolute slog. As I sat there reflecting on it, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
"Wait... could this have been a stalling tactic the school prepared for explorer-type students?"
If I looked at it from that perspective, the insane volume of this year's assignments finally made sense. Although there’s a gap between being a first-year and a second-year student, the amount of work this time around had practically doubled compared to last year. To be blunt, it was the kind of workload where if you just did a little bit every day, you might not even finish by the time school started again.
We had set a goal to finish everything by the end of July so we could go to the dungeon, and while we’d focused and pushed through, the schedule had been grueling. Everyone’s eyes were half-dead during our study sessions. Saori-chan and Tatebayashi-san had to spend half their time desperately coddling and dragging back Mika and Hino-san, who were constantly on the verge of throwing tantrums and running away.
"There are probably going to be a lot of them—explorers who got so caught up in the dungeon that they ignored their homework..."
I could see them now. They’d reach the final week of vacation, realize they hadn't finished a single thing, and turn pale. Some would realize they didn't have enough time and try to pull all-nighters, only to fail. Others would show up on the first day of school to frantically copy a friend’s work, and the rest would just give up entirely, staring off into space with a look of enlightened serenity.
Yeah, that was a common sight at the start of the new semester.
"And then, if they fail to submit their work because they were too fed up to do it, the school can set up mandatory makeup classes after school or on weekends... Is this some kind of double trap?"
If so, it was a pretty malicious one.
Then again, it was a double-edged sword. If too many students failed to turn in their work, the burden on the teachers running the makeup sessions would skyrocket.
"A normal person would just cut back on their dungeon time to make sure they finished their work... Oh, I get it. This is a filtering mechanism."
The school could identify the students who were so obsessed with dungeon crawling that they neglected their education and put them on a priority surveillance target list as potential troublemakers. Conversely, the students who could balance their studies with the dungeon could be left to their own devices without much worry. Since the teachers had a limited number of eyes, they had to pick their battles.
Given that there were already real-world examples of students getting so obsessed with dungeons that they suffered serious injuries and were held back a year—only to cause more chaos in their new grade—the school probably needed these kinds of preventative measures. Just by keeping a close eye on the attendance rates of priority surveillance targets, they could probably reduce the number of students failing.
"Well, if that’s the case, the non-explorer-type students are just getting caught in the crossfire. Though, I have no idea if my guess is actually right."
I was just theorizing. It was entirely possible the teachers just thought this much homework was necessary.
But if that was the case, I had to worry about how far behind the regular curriculum actually was.
"At any rate, my summer homework is officially done. Now then, I wonder if Yuji and Hiiragi-san are finished?"
I checked the clock and saw it was nearly 21:00. I grabbed my phone and sent a message to both of them reporting my completion. If I waited too late, I’d be a nuisance, and I couldn't head out to the dungeon alone anyway.
While waiting for their replies, I left my room to get some tea, trying to work out the knots in my stiff muscles.
When I headed downstairs and opened the living room door, I saw my father and mother sitting on the sofa with the TV on. It looked like they were watching some variety special. A newcomer celebrity who had recently gained a bit of fame was desperately shoveling a mountain of katsudon into his mouth. He was clearly trying to leave an impression on the show, but I was impressed he could eat that much without it coming back up. Since I’d started moving my body more for explorer work, my own appetite had grown, but that amount was still impossible. I was confident I’d get heartburn halfway through and puke if I kept going.
As I stood there contemplating the limits of the human stomach, my mother noticed me.
"Oh, Daiki. Is your homework finished already?"
"Yeah, more or less."
"Wait, really?"
When I nodded, she looked genuinely surprised. Mika must have been complaining about her assignments at dinner. Mother likely assumed I was in the same boat since I’d been holed up in my room.
I walked toward the refrigerator and explained.
"I finished the workbooks while we were doing the group study sessions. The reports were a pain because I had to read the books and gather data, but I managed to power through."
"The reports are like book reports, right? Did you finish the reading that fast?"
"One of the books on the list was something I'd read before, so I just had to skim it to refresh my memory. That made the essay easy. For the other reports, I was already interested in the topics and had done some looking into them before, so I wasn't starting from scratch."
As I poured tea into a glass, I recalled the themes for the reports. "Societal Changes Before and After the Appearance of Dungeons," "The Future Social Role of Explorers," "Shifts in Global Affairs Due to Dungeon Crystals," and so on. There were several dungeon-related prompts, and we had to choose one to research.
The heavy focus on dungeon themes was probably the school's way of forcing students to think about their relationship with the phenomenon from a more objective perspective.
"Oh, I see. You got lucky, then."
"For the book report, definitely. But the research reports still took some effort to organize the data."
"Even so, you're much better off than Mika. She came down for tea a while ago and was complaining that she couldn't focus because she kept having to stop her reading to go look up more data."
"Is that so?"
I frowned. Was Mika trying to do everything at once? With those kinds of assignments, you had to finish one before starting the next, or your thoughts would just turn into a jumbled mess. I couldn't write her essay for her, but I could at least help with the research. If I organized the materials for her, she could jump straight into writing the report as soon as she finished the book.
Well, it would still take her some time to actually read through the references I prepared.
"I’ve got some free time now, so I think I’ll help her with the material gathering."
"But that's Mika's homework, Daiki. Is it really okay if you help?"
"I'm only helping with the research. Mika’s still the one who has to synthesize it and write the actual report, so it should be fine."
"I suppose..."
Mother tilted her head, still a bit uncertain, but Father chimed in from the side.
"I don't see the harm in helping with research."
"But, dear..."
"Even at the office, if someone's busy with a task, someone else with free time will help them gather the data they need."
"Well... all right."
Mother seemed to believe that a student should do everything from scratch, but since we’d already been doing group study sessions, I didn't see why helping with research should be off-limits.
I finished my tea while waiting for her verdict. After a moment, she gave a reluctant nod.
"Alright, Daiki. Help her out, then."
"Got it."
I didn't think it was such a big deal, but I caught Father giving a small, wry smile behind Mother’s back. I made sure to keep my own face neutral as I nodded.
After finishing my tea, I said goodnight to them and headed back upstairs.
The notification light on my phone was blinking. I picked it up, wondering which of them had replied first.
"Oh, both of them. Let's see... Yuji has just a little bit of his report left, and Hiiragi-san is almost finished with her book report."
It looked like I was the first one across the finish line. I’d probably gained the lead simply because I didn't have to read my assigned book from scratch.
Still, at this rate, going to the dungeon tomorrow might be a stretch, but the day after tomorrow was looking very likely.
"For now... 'Understood, I'll wait for you to finish.' And... send."
I sent a quick, neutral reply to both of them.
If I said something like "Hurry up" or "I'm waiting," it might come off as me being impatient or trying to pressure them since I finished early. Since we’d only agreed to finish "in July" without a specific date, I wanted to avoid sounding like a nag.
"Now, I just wait for their final reports. In the meantime... let's see how Mika is doing."
I left my phone on the desk and walked over to Mika's room.
I knocked on the door and called out. No matter how close we were, I wasn't about to barge into my teenage sister's room without checking first.
"Hey, Mika. How's the progress?"
"Huh? Onii-chan? Do you need something?"
"Just checking in. Can I come in?"
"I guess so..."
"Coming in."
With her permission, I stepped inside.
Mika had a book spread out on her desk and was scribbling her thoughts onto manuscript paper with a mechanical pencil. It looked like she had already finished the reading part.
"What's up? It's not like you to just drop by..."
"Well, I finished my stuff, so I came to see how you were doing. Mother mentioned you were having a hard time downstairs."
"Wait, what?! You’re done already, Onii-chan?!"
"Yeah, just finished. But looking at this, you're almost done with the book report too."
She had four pages of manuscript paper filled out. Since they were 400-character sheets, she had already written about 1,600 characters. The assignment required about 2,000, so she was at the 80% mark—almost there.
If the word count was too low, the teachers would just reject it outright.
"I can't believe you're done... I'm so jealous."
"Don't be like that. I’ll give you a hand, so keep at it."
"Really?! You'll help me?!"
Mika, who had been looking a bit depressed, suddenly brightened up at my offer. Though, considering how far she’d already come, there wasn't that much left for me to actually do.
I calmed her down and asked exactly where she stood with the research report. Once I had a handle on the situation, I got to work. While she finished her book report, I began gathering and organizing the data for her research paper. Most of the basic stuff was there, but it was a mess. I added some supplementary info she was missing and sorted everything chronologically and by topic to make it easy to follow.
As a little extra, I highlighted the key sections and added sticky notes to the relevant pages. That alone would make the writing process ten times easier.
"Thanks, Onii-chan! This is going to make the report so much easier to write!"
"Glad to hear it. This is as much as I can help with, so the rest is up to you."
"Got it!"
I handed over the organized pile of materials and left her room with a word of encouragement. I finished my daily routine of slime hunting and went to bed before midnight for the first time in a while.
The next morning, I checked my phone to find emails from both Yuji and Hiiragi-san. They were finished.
Finally, every obstacle standing in the way of our dungeon stay had been cleared.