“…Wake up, old man. Wake up.”
A voice called out to me from somewhere far away.
That voice…was it Shion-san’s?
“It doesn’t look like he’s fully conscious yet…”
I could hear what sounded like Mina-chan’s voice as well, faint and distant.
Fully conscious…?
Consciousness… my memories…
Ah, that’s right.
I… no, we heard the Hero’s voice in the Sky Castle. Then the castle had fallen into chaos, and Otin-san…
Otin-san had…
“Ryunosuke. Wake the old man up.”
“Shaaaah!… (Chomp)”
“GYAAAAAAAH!!”
My mind, still drifting somewhere between reality and a dream, was violently yanked back by the intense sensation that suddenly shot through my right arm.
“Ah, Daishi-san! Thank goodness you’re awake!”
The moment I came to, accompanied by the unmistakable feeling that “something” had sunk its teeth into me, I jerked upright.
Right in front of me was Mina-chan’s beautiful face, leaning in close with obvious concern. For a split second, I felt my cheeks warm.
But as my head cleared, my attention shifted decisively elsewhere. More specifically, to my right arm.
It didn’t actually hurt. Not really. Still, I was absolutely certain that something was biting me. The source of that strange sensation was…
“(Chomp, chomp)”
It was Ryunosuke-kun’s way of showing affection.
“…Hey, little dragon. I’m awake now, so… mind letting go of my arm?”
“(Chomp chomp)”
Ryunosuke-kun’s relentless gentle nibbles continued unabated.
He wasn’t secretly drinking my blood or anything, was he?
“You refused to wake up, so I had Ryunosuke wake you up. This is hardly the time to be lazing around in bed.”
Personally, I thought the really strange people were the ones acting perfectly composed after everything that had just happened. Then again, I supposed they’d simply been through far more than I had.
In terms of raw stats, I might surpass them by a considerable margin. But when it came to actual dungeon-delving experience, I was hopelessly outclassed.
And losing a formidable opponent I’d only just begun to get close to… that wasn’t the kind of grief a person could simply shake off in a matter of moments.
| > …Wha… pened? Oh! > We’re back! > I can see again! > You okay, old man? > Looks like everyone’s alive. > LOL, why is there a mini dragon latched onto the old man’s right arm? > Ryunosuke-kun really loves the old man. > More importantly… where are we? > This place suddenly feels… modern. > Those look like office buildings. > Wait, Nether-Class dungeons have office buildings now? > Are we seriously still in a Nether-Class dungeon? > Where the heck did we get sent? > No clue. |
A few comments in the chat told me everything I needed to know. Apparently, the livestream had cut out for several minutes. Based on what I’d experienced before, there was only one likely explanation. The instant Otin-san activated [Ragnarok], he must have used spatial teleportation to send us here.
Whether he’d deliberately chosen this destination or we’d ended up here by chance, I had no way of knowing. Either way, we needed to take stock of the situation.
“I’ve already searched the entire room. So far, I haven’t found any monsters… and there don’t seem to be any traps, either.”
As she spoke, I found myself looking around as well.
The first thing that caught my eye was that the room was enclosed by floor-to-ceiling glass walls that formed a complete circle, giving us an unobstructed view outside.
And beyond that glass is a city. Not just any city, either. A dense urban skyline packed with towering office buildings. Honestly, if someone told me this was Tokyo, I’d believe them without hesitation.
The room itself was almost completely empty. Except for one thing. Right in the center stood a structure so out of place that it felt almost surreal. A crimson spiral staircase. It stretched upward toward the ceiling, looking as though someone had simply dropped it into the room without the slightest concern for whether it belonged there. It clashed with everything around it, an unmistakably foreign object amid the otherwise modern setting.
“So… this isn’t a dungeon, is it?”
Carefully prying Ryunosuke-kun’s increasingly overenthusiastic display of affection off my arm, I turned to Mina-chan and Shion-san with the question that had been nagging at me.
The spiral staircase was undeniably strange…
But aside from that, this place looked exactly like the upper floors of a luxury office tower.
“…Hard to say. We can’t completely rule out the possibility that this is some kind of illusion created by a skill.”
“I don’t think that’s the case though. My instincts are telling me otherwise. This isn’t a dungeon at all. It’s a room in a real building somewhere.”
Mina-chan fixed Shion-san with a serious, unwavering stare as she spoke.
The problem is that there isn’t a shred of evidence behind her conclusion.
“…You’re basing that on your instincts?”
For real?
Then again… I vaguely remembered Satsuki-chan mentioning that Mina-chan’s intuition had an uncanny habit of being right. Even so, relying on a gut feeling at a time like this isn’t exactly reassuring.
Well, there was only one thing left to do. My audience had now swelled to three and a half million viewers. Surely someone out there could identify this place.
Viewers… we’re counting on you!
| > That’s the giant Koshitan Bank billboard > And the neon sign for Shikanoko Securities. > There’s a Goristar Communications video ad over there. > Hey, that’s the Monpachi Theater, isn’t it? > With this view… and the way everything’s laid out, this is… > There’s only one place it could be. > No doubt about it. > If this is the real world, then it has to be there. > I’ve got a really bad feeling about this… > Is there anyone actually inside that building right now? > Seriously… why did they end up there? > Funny how fate works… |
Hey, can you please not keep this a shared understanding only among the viewers?
Tell me where this is too!
Clang… clang… clang…
“…?!”
“I never imagined you’d jump in directly… I seem to have underestimated the power of the gods.”
The rhythmic sound of footsteps echoed down from above—the sharp click of shoes mixed with the metallic ring of the spiral staircase.
The moment I heard that voice my eyes shot upward. It was a voice I recognized. A voice I utterly despised.
A figure slowly descended the staircase. I didn’t recognize the man’s face. But I knew him. My sworn enemy. The one I’d been fated to confront.
There was no mistake.
The man casually making his way down the crimson spiral staircase was—
“Nice to meet you, you damned priest.”
“…Likewise. Nice to meet you too, you damned Hero.”
The situation is rapidly approaching a dramatic climax.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
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