“Hero… Soma…”
Satsuki-chan’s hand, which had been slowly bringing sips of royal milk tea to her lips, suddenly stopped. Her expression darkened, and for a moment, she even seemed to tremble.
The matter had already been resolved, but considering how painful the whole ordeal must have been for Satsuki-chan, perhaps it had left a scar somewhere deep in her subconscious—a sort of lingering trauma.
“Damn hero…”
Seeing Satsuki-chan like that, I found myself muttering the words under my breath as various memories came rushing back.
The AI Hero Soma who had been used as a pawn really was an awful bastard. His personality had been utterly rotten, and there was no denying he was a terrible person.
Even so, by the end, there had been at least a little room for sympathy. That man had been suffering in his own way, too. But the person controlling him from behind the scenes—the corporate slave pulling the strings—was beyond redemption.
I killed him instantly with the Hell Gate, so I never learned what his true intentions were. Still, the thought of him sitting smugly in a safe place, doing nothing but barking orders while everyone else took the risks, pissed me off to no end.
And now, that very mastermind is standing right in front of us.
I don’t care what they say about some “crisis facing humanity.” There was no way in hell I could accept the wishes of the Guild Headquarters when they were willing to make people go along with something like that.
“The Divine Class-level went quite well, though. We already had the data from the Nether Class-level, and since it was our second attempt, I thought we’d be able to handle it a little better…”
He paused.
“But I never imagined it would end like that. To be perfectly honest, I was disappointed.”
Yuda-san operated the remote again, closing the presentation slides that had been projected onto the wall. A wry smile crossed his face as he continued speaking in an almost matter-of-fact tone.
There wasn’t even a hint of sorrow in his expression. To the Guild, both the AI Hero and the corporate slave who had been its original operator were nothing more than tools.
No… Perhaps even Yuda-san himself was just another expendable pawn in the Guild’s eyes.
“So, does this request mean you want us to destroy every dungeon in place of the Hero?”
Mina-chan carefully kept her composure as she tried to gauge Yuda-san’s true intentions.
There was a faint trace of anger in her expression.
Yeah… The Guild really was getting on my nerves.
I felt exactly the same way.
“No. If our hypothesis is correct, then the plan can be completed by taking control of the Divine Class, the Abyssal Sea class, and the Nether Class dungeons, and then defeating the Dungeon Master who has made the West Tokyo Fourth Beginner Dungeon its base.”
“We’ve already taken down the Divine Class and the Abyssal Sea class. All that remains are the Nether Class and the Beginner Dungeon.”
So the Dungeon Master was the real target.
Well, that made sense. After all, the one who created this entire dungeon system was that little goddess-girl, wasn’t she? Ah… Though I suppose the Nether Class and the others were different.
I think she mentioned that those dungeons were independent entities or something like that.
Hmm? Come to think of it…
He was talking as though the Guild had orchestrated the whole thing, but wasn’t the Abyssal Sea Class the dungeon that Shion had conquered back when she was a Demon Realm Knight…?
“I was the one who conquered the Abyssal Sea Class. I know nothing about any such plan.”
So I was right. Shion really was the one who conquered the Abyssal Sea Class dungeon. She just doesn’t remember doing it.
“I’m glad you made use of the Demon Realm Knight armor, Shion Kusakabe. That armor was a special piece of equipment we developed specifically for conquering the Abyssal Sea Class dungeon. We were having trouble finding someone compatible with it, and then you went and took it without permission and put it to good use. In the end, things worked out rather nicely.”
“……”
“Of course, we had planned to retrieve the armor afterward, then reconstruct and reuse it. Unfortunately… thanks to someone destroying it so spectacularly, it became impossible to recover. That was another outcome we hadn’t anticipated.”
Yuda-san suddenly shot me a sharp glare.
What the hell?!
You wanna go, asshole?!
Oh. Right. I was the one who destroyed the armor.
“Daishi Ajiri. I believe you’ve more or less figured out what I’m getting at from everything I’ve told you. The reason our plans have been thrown into disarray time and time again is you. Every last bit of it can be traced back to your actions. Therefore, you have an obligation to cooperate with us.”
“No, no, no, no. All of that was completely beyond my control.”
All I did was quit my office job, become an Explorer, and do my damnedest to survive this far. What was I supposed to say to something like that?
“Regardless of how it came about, your actions have consistently interfered with our plans. And judging from our analysis of your abilities and the combat data we’ve collected so far, your stats are clearly abnormal. What’s more, there is a possibility that you have some significant connection to the Dungeon Master. Given all that, we can no longer afford to leave you at large.”
“You will cooperate with us to save humanity, under our supervision and with proper guidance.”
Yuda-san had finally gotten around to revealing the true purpose of this meeting.
So, basically, he wanted us to stop arguing and go kill the Dungeon Master for the sake of humanity.
But the Dungeon Master had asked me to conquer the Nether Class dungeon first. I had also received quite a bit of help from them, so personally, I want to prioritize that.
I want to have another proper, leisurely conversation with that old King of the Netherworld, too.
“I was planning to conquer the Nether Class dungeon anyway, even without being asked, but…”
“No, you can leave the Nether Class until last, Daishi Ajiri. Before that, I want you to enter the West Tokyo Fourth Beginner Dungeon once more and somehow lure the Dungeon Master out to the surface.”
“Lure the Dungeon Master… to the surface?”
I thought they wanted me to kill him.
“Yes. More precisely, I want you to bring the main body outside the super-barrier currently covering the entire Beginner Dungeon. We’ll take care of the rest. Even with your absurdly high stats, I don’t believe for a moment that you could defeat him so easily.”
Yeah… I didn’t think that was going to happen either.
For starters, how the hell was I supposed to get into a Beginner Dungeon covered by this so-called super-barrier?
No, maybe I could ask through that telepathic communication thing we used to talk directly inside our heads?
But more importantly… they were already talking as though I had already agreed to everything. We hadn’t even said a single word about cooperating with them yet.
Sure, I owed them a few favors, but I didn’t trust a word they were saying. And I am pretty sure my companions felt the same way. The best thing to do here would be to turn them down cleanly, get the hell out of here, and spend some time recovering before tackling the Nether class dungeon.
“Oh, by the way. There’s a reason I’ve deliberately been using the word ‘cooperate’ this entire time. I wanted you to participate in our mission willingly and without any unpleasantness.”
He smiled.
“Make no mistake, however. We are not speaking to you as equals. We have always held the initiative.”
“…Huh?”
Yuda-san’s attitude had unmistakably begun to change.
He fiddled with the remote once more, and this time, four separate images appeared on the wall behind him.
W-What is this!?
“You have important people in your lives besides the companions here, don’t you?”
Yuda-san’s voice remained eerily calm.
“I wasn’t expecting you to give me a very agreeable answer, so I decided to show you these in advance. Well… I believe you understand what this means.”
“Y-You bastard…”
“O-Oniichan!!”
“Grandma!!”
The footage Yuda-san projected was a real-time live stream showing our immediate family members going about their daily lives as usual.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
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