Chapter 16
The roar shook the cavern from floor to ceiling.
Dust raced across the large monitor in the viewing gallery. On the live broadcast watched by six hundred thousand people at once, a small figure vanished for an instant.
【Hina-chan!?】
【Did she dodge!? Hey, show us the eastern section—the narrow passage!】
【No way, that's a fifth-floor boss-class monster...!】
The dust thinned. The girl was still standing, half a step outside the path of the charge.
'D-dodge! Examinee Amaha Hina has dodged! But her opponent is beyond the norm; I don't see how she can keep doing this!'
The announcer's voice rose. At the commentary desk, I enlarged the screen in front of me. Toes pointed outward. Heels not lifted. Eyes not lowered. —Yes, she was trembling. It was the right kind of trembling.
"Everyone, before you panic, let me explain. What she's about to do is what we covered in Lesson Nine of the course: 'Breaking Down Danger.'"
【Lesson Nine? That was the one where he explained it using a goblin!?】
【She's going to do that with beginner-level fundamentals?】
"Danger isn't one big number. It's made up of speed, weight, toughness, temperament, and compatibility with the terrain. If you look at it all together, it becomes a mass called 'can't win.' But if you break it down, each component can be eliminated one at a time."
I set down my teacup.
"She's already finished breaking it down. Watch her. It's probably going to be dull. Shockingly dull—and it'll end up in the textbooks."
◇
(First component: speed.)
Amaha Hina counted as she backed away.
That charge was fast. But it was only fast in a straight line. The cavern passage curved. Every time it went around a corner, that massive body scraped against the wall and slowed down. —I don't need to eliminate its speed. The terrain will do it for me.
(Second: weight.)
Heavy things can't stop. And if they can't stop, they can't choose where to stop.
(Third: habits.)
Before the charge, its weight shifted onto its right foreleg. At the end, its neck always dropped. And then—that carapace was three centimeters wider than this passage.
The voice from the riverbank at dusk rose in her mind once more. 'As long as you can observe, your exam is still going.'
She exhaled. Hina sheathed her sword.
'Th-the examinee is sheathing her sword!? She's put away her weapon in this situation!'
【What is she doing!?】
【No way, where's her sword!?】
I was probably the only one at the commentary desk who was smiling.
"That's right. She doesn't need a sword against that. —Don't fight an opponent you can't beat with your weapon. We covered that in Lesson Nine, too."
◇
Later strategy manuals would record the next eight minutes as 'the first complete example of terrain guidance in combat against a large specimen.'
The girl kept fleeing. But it wasn't mere flight. Two corners, three charges. She lured it, dodged, and fell back again. Every time it charged, its massive body scraped against the wall, scattering white dust from the seams in its carapace.
In front of the monitor in the control room, Chief Examiner Sakuma realized that the girl's escape route had never once strayed beyond the map she herself had recorded immediately after entering.
(...She's not running away. Is she leading it somewhere?)
At the very end of the narrow passage was the edge of a fissure marked "Caution: Do Not Enter" on the survey map of the eastern section.
The girl cleared the step just before it and waited. The giant bit into the rock as it advanced. Toward a single point like a constricted throat—the spot three centimeters too narrow for it.
The charge. Half a step.
Its carapace bit into the rock, wedging itself in, and the giant came to a complete stop for the first time. Then, just as its habit dictated at the end of every charge, its head dropped, horns and all.
Heavy things can't stop. The mass that had nowhere to go fell all at once over the edge of the weathered rock shelf.
With a dry crack, the floor gave way.
The giant roared once, then was dragged by its own weight into the darkness of the fissure.
――That day, and before or since, it was the only creature to fall in the Fourth Administrative Dungeon.
◇
The viewing gallery fell silent.
No one remembered how to use their voice. There had not been a single flashy technique. There had not been a finishing blow. The girl never even drew her sword again. With nothing but the way she walked, the corners she chose, and a half-step, the fifth-floor boss-class monster was gone.
On the monitor, the girl did not turn her back on the collapsed floor. With one hand resting on her sword's hilt, she continued staring down into the fissure. She never relaxed her posture until the control room checked the bottom sensor and finished broadcasting: 'Target specimen incapacitated.'
Then the girl sat down where she was and began counting the lights, her pulse, and her remaining medicine. Just as she always did in the course.
"You fixed that habit you had after winning."
Apparently, the microphone picked up my mutter. It was clipped and circulated later.
After a beat—the viewing gallery exploded.
The cheers mixed with the sound of feet stomping on the floor and reportedly reached the cavernous test site. The comment section was already moving too fast to read.
【Woooooooooo!】
【A shutout! It's a shutout!】
【Not only was she unharmed—she didn't even draw her sword again!?】
【The final form of low-key】
【So that's what you meant by 'it'll end up in the textbooks'...!】
In the control room, Sakuma finished entering the score and turned to the man beside him.
"Special Examination Supervisor. Any objections to the ruling?"
Iizumi Seiji remained motionless, staring at the monitor. Fundamentals were tools for surviving what was expected; they weren't supposed to be enough to stop the unexpected. But the girl on the screen had broken the unexpected down into components and lined them up on a shelf one by one.
"...None."
Sakuma nodded and turned back toward the broadcast microphone. The same words as a month ago came out.
"No objections. —Passed."
◇
After the festival came the verification. That was the order of things on the internet these days.
The preserved culling records. The words "Regulatory Minimum." The special examination supervisor's background and next month's personnel reshuffle. Once again, the dots quickly became a line. The Association's investigation ended with "within regulations," and no disciplinary action was taken. The evidence had never been complete.
But public opinion moves faster than a court.
【Even without disciplinary action, everyone already knows what happened】
【Genbu can't raise aces, but why is it world-class at planning harassment?】
【And the fact that this harassment became the stage for humanity's first shutout victory? That's art.】
The Dungeon Agency investigator who had come to observe left the reporters with one sentence before going home. "I witnessed the finest possible example of prevention through education. The report will be a long one."
As for me, I mentioned the exam only once during that night's stream.
"You know, it's faster to plug a hole in a system than to blame someone for it. All the records have been preserved and made public. Everyone now knows where the hole is. —So it'll be plugged. That's how these things work."
【Teacher was Teacher again today】
【We're all boiling over here, but this guy is the only one who stays so cool】
After ending the stream, I wrote one line in my notebook.
【Amaha Hina—B-Rank. Habit after winning corrected. Next task—experience as the one who entrusts her back to someone else】
◇
Clan Genbu headquarters, the chairman's office on the top floor.
Togakushi Gen was alone. On the terminal before him was the complete exam record shared by the Association. He had no idea how many times he had played it back.
Rewind. Half a step. Rewind. Sheathing. Rewind. The corner.
――Observation, and putting it into words.
How many years ago had it been? That man had once brought a proposal to the chairman's office. 'Systematizing the Fundamentals Curriculum.' Turning observation records into educational materials to reduce the death rate among lower-ranking explorers. An unprofitable, dull stack of papers.
"It won't make us any money."
Togakushi had said that and shoved it back. He really had. What good was saving E-rank explorers with the effort it took to raise S-rank explorers?
On the screen, a seventeen-year-old girl moved half a step, and something humanity had never defeated head-on sank under its own weight.
That was the completed form of that stack of papers.
The playback ended. The face of a fifty-five-year-old man appeared on the black screen.
It was a silence far longer than the five seconds at the press conference. In an office where no one was watching, Togakushi Gen's face clouded for the first time.
◇
Several days later, the evening course began as usual.
"Good evening, I'm Shin. If there are any first-time viewers, let me say the usual thing. This is a course for beginners. I won't be covering flashy techniques or talking about the strongest gear. It's dull. Probably shockingly dull."
【We know】
【Apparently there's a beginner's course that produced a B-rank explorer】
【Teacher, what fundamentals are we learning today?】
"Today we're learning how to tie knots. See? Dull, right? But this is another thing that keeps you from dy—"
The words I was about to say were swallowed by a sudden disturbance in the comment section.
It wasn't a gold frame. It was a blue verification badge. And a name I knew almost painfully well sat in the middle of the screen.
【Shishiōmaru—Official】 'Old man, it's me. I want to become your student again.'
It was the sound of humanity's hardest shield pounding directly on the door of the beginner's course.