After maximizing every bit of free time I had at the school festival, I headed toward our club room with somewhat heavy steps. I was praying that the line stretching out the door had shortened, even if only by a few people.
Based on our projections from yesterday, I’d thought I’d be able to man the booth a bit more leisurely. This situation was completely unexpected.
"...Right. It’s not going to disappear that easily, is it?"
As I climbed the stairs to the floor where our club room was located, I let out a small sigh at the sight before me. The line I had hoped would be gone had actually grown longer.
Why is it getting even longer...?
"No use just staring at it. I guess I’ll brace myself and head inside."
I gave a slight nod to the guests in line as I stepped into the room. There were several people inside, earnestly examining the materials we had on display.
Tatebayashi-san and Hino-san seemed busy acting as guides and answering questions, so I first spoke to Yuji, who was handling the reception desk.
"Sorry to keep you. I’m here for the shift change... but it looks like things are as hectic as ever."
"Yeah. In fact, I feel like it’s getting busier by the minute. Those handouts you copied for me earlier might actually run out, you know?"
"That many? Should I go make more right now?"
"That’s a tough call..."
Yuji and I both made grim faces as we looked at the remaining stack. We’d already printed a significant number, so it was a toss-up whether we’d actually go through all of them. Since the school festival was heading toward its conclusion, there was a high possibility the number of visitors would finally start to decrease.
Besides, if we ended up with leftovers, there was no other use for them.
"Should we just... apologize if we run out?"
"That might be for the best. If we print any more, they might just become dead stock."
"Worst case, if we run out, we’ll just have them take a picture of the master copy with their phones."
Since copying costs money, I didn't want to waste resources. With the quality of modern smartphone cameras, the text would be perfectly legible. I just had to pray the handouts would last.
"Then we’ll leave the handout situation at that. Is there anything else for the handover?"
"Nothing fundamental. There are a lot of guests, so just be careful not to let any confusion arise. There might be some people who are a bit on edge because of the long wait."
"True, the line has gotten pretty long."
"They’re mostly adults, so I don't think there will be any major scenes, though."
"It’s always easier to deal with trouble if you maintain a mindset of being overly prepared. If you just say you never imagined it could happen, you’ll end up being reactive," I noted.
Troubleshooting is all about how much you can anticipate a situation and think of countermeasures in advance. Well, I was talking big, but I never imagined a situation like this—with such a massive queue.
When I heard from Tatebayashi-san and the others about the troublesome guests who came in the morning, I had thought about how to handle them peacefully, but I never expected enough people to form a line like this...
"Well, do your best without tensing up too much."
"Right..."
As I continued the handover small talk with Yuji, Mika entered the room with an anxious expression.
"S-sorry to keep you waiting."
"Oh, Mika, you’re here."
"Ah, Onii-chan. Hey, what’s going on? Why is there such a huge line?"
"Who knows? For some reason, it seems we’ve become popular enough to have a crowd."
Mika asked with a look of genuine shock, but I was the one who wanted to know the reason. How did it come to this? We aren't doing anything special. I’d just lightly summarized information that you could find with a bit of searching on the internet to fill space.
"Since Mika-chan is here, let’s apologize to the guests and switch over," Yuji suggested.
"Sounds good."
"We should probably talk to Tatebayashi-san and the others for a bit, too."
I felt bad for the guests, but if we didn't do the handover properly, it would cause trouble later. The three of them were handling attractions for their own classes after this, so it would be difficult to have them come back to explain things. We had to listen carefully to their notes so we could handle the room on our own.
After apologizing to the guests, the five of us went through the handover process. That said, I’d already heard the gist from Yuji, so it was mainly about having Tatebayashi-san and Hino-san tell me the questions they were frequently asked. To save time, I planned to relay those details to Mika later.
As expected, the most common questions were about the approximate market rates for monster drop items, the projected annual income of student explorers, and, of course, taxes.
"Those questions are exactly what I expected."
"Yes. We were mostly asked about the projected annual income for student explorers," Tatebayashi-san said.
"Everyone was surprised when we told them the market rates for rare drop items," Hino-san added.
"Well, for rare items, the buying prices are what they are. There are plenty of things that can blow past the dependency limit in a single go."
Depending on the item, like a skill scroll, they can go for hundreds of thousands of yen at the low end, and easily reach millions if they’re valuable. Even if the amount is split among a party, the possibility of being disqualified from the limit in one shot is quite high for small groups. Naturally, someone who doesn't know the market rates for drop items would be shocked.
"It really is true. I looked around at various things to use as reference material for this exhibit and was shocked myself," Tatebayashi-san said. "When I looked into it, things that were dungeon-produced drop items really were being traded at high prices."
"Well, whether you can actually get your hands on those items is largely up to luck."
"Even so! If you’re lucky, even a total amateur explorer on their first dungeon attack can get something worth millions of yen. Actually, I saw quite a few posts online from newcomer explorers who said they’d gotten them."
"...Well, given the total number of explorers out there, it’s not statistically strange for a certain number of people to find them," I countered.
Even if the drop rate for rare items is one in several hundred, if a large number of explorers are active, a decent number of rare items will be found every day. If newcomer explorers get a few of those, you end up with "lucky" explorers blessed with beginner’s luck. And if some of them make the kind of online posts that Tatebayashi-san saw, more people dive into dungeon exploration hoping to follow suit. The dream of the lucky newcomer explorer never ends.
"I suppose that's how it is."
"That’s just how it goes. Now, if there’s nothing else, shall we finish the handover and switch?"
"Yes. There’s nothing else in particular. The 'troublesome' guests I heard about this morning didn't show up again, so it’s really just about managing the volume of people."
"We’ll handle it somehow. So, is that it for the handover report?"
I looked around at everyone, and they all gave a small nod. We were done.
"Then, good work, you three. Mika and I will take over from here."
"I’m counting on you. We’re heading back to our classes now, so if anything happens... I’m sorry, but contact Hiiragi-san and the others. It would be hard for us to leave our class attractions to come help."
"Got it. Oh, if you see Hiiragi-san and the others, tell them what the situation is like here and that we might contact them. I intend to avoid asking for help as much as possible, but given this crowd... I think it’ll be better than a sudden emergency call."
"Understood, I’ll let them know."
I felt bad doing this during their precious free time, but since this level of success was unexpected, it was best to have a safety net. Rather than acting tough only to be crushed by the workload, it was better to be honest about needing backup.
"Then, Daiki, good luck."
"Good luck, Mika-chan."
"Yeah, I’ll manage somehow."
"Haha, yeah. I’ll do my best."
And so, Yuji and the others left the room with smiles full of a certain sense of liberation. After dealing with such a massive number of guests, it was only natural they’d feel relieved to escape.
After taking over the booth, Mika and I were immediately swept up in the frantic pace. It was even busier than I’d been told. It was likely the difference between three people handling the crowd versus only two. There were quite a few guests asking for detailed explanations, so we were constantly short-handed.
One stroke of luck was that the questions were primarily the ones I’d prepared for, so I wasn't at a loss. After repeating the same points over and over, I became quite practiced.
"Therefore, the average buying price of skill scrolls fluctuates significantly depending primarily on demand from corporate-type explorers. Lately, scrolls for magic useful for life within the dungeon, like Water Magic, are being traded at high prices. Previously, scrolls for direct combat skills were the most valuable, but those prices have stabilized quite a bit."
"I see, so the objectives of dungeon-related companies have shifted from short-term goals to mid-to-long-term goals?" a visitor asked.
"Exactly. Because of that, dungeon food items that were previously considered rare are being supplied in large quantities, causing a major upheaval in market prices."
"So the reason dungeon food prices have been dropping lately is tied to that strategic shift..."
I provided as much explanation as possible to the technical questions. I left the relatively straightforward tax-related explanations to Mika. By dividing our roles, we managed to prevent the booth from descending into chaos.
"To think that even a student could have that much income..."
"...Yes. They might have exceeded the dependency limit already. It might be a good idea to sit down and have a talk about it," Mika suggested to a guest.
"That child goes dungeon exploring almost every weekend. I really need to talk to them."
"We have handouts for you to take home. I think they’ll be useful for your discussion."
Mika was handling the worried parents with a sympathetic but professional tone. It seemed some parents had heard about our booth from friends who visited earlier; a steady stream of people would glance at the exhibit and immediately ask about explorer-related taxes. Once they finished listening to Mika, they inevitably walked away with knitted brows, lost in thought.
"Excuse me, I’ll take this handout."
"Yes, please go ahead. Oh, wait. Sorry, please limit it to one copy per person."
"Eh? I wanted to give one to a friend, so I needed two..."
"I’m sorry, but we have many other guests waiting, and we want to make sure as many people as possible get one. Please, just one."
Despite the extra copies I’d made, the handouts were vanishing. We were already down to less than a third of the stack.
This is bad. We really might run out.
"Phew, the guests just never stop coming."
"Yeah. It’s a good problem to have, but when there are this many..."
Mika and I muttered to each other during a rare thirty-second gap. It had been nearly an hour since we took over, but the flow showed no signs of slowing. The line outside still had more than ten people in it. Even though the school festival was nearing its end, the crowd wouldn't let up.
Just as we were whispering our exhaustion, another guest asked for help.
"These are people who went through the trouble of coming to our booth; let’s pull through, Mika."
"Yeah... Let’s do it, Onii-chan."
We hid our fatigue, put on fresh smiles, and went back to work.
Another hour passed. The festival was finally winding down, and as the flow of guests began to thin, Mika and I breathed sighs of relief. We finally had enough mental leeway to relax—but that was when it happened.
"It’s finally my turn. You’re the student who appeared in that video, right? Could we talk for a bit? I’m from an organization called..."
Trouble often comes just when things are going well. In front of me stood a middle-aged man in a suit that looked entirely out of place in a school club room, holding out a business card.
Seriously...?