Chapter 3
By dawn, the twelve-second clip posted at two in the morning had been replayed tens of thousands of times.
【What kind of dodge was that? That's E-rank gear, right?】
【Even C-rankers usually get hit by a Gray Hound's leap the first time they see it】
【I played it in slow motion. She's reacting to the way its hind legs sink before it jumps. She's dodging after seeing it】
【No way. It was a coincidence】
【Could she slash its flank along the shortest path immediately after dodging by mere coincidence?】
Before anyone knew it, the clip had acquired a title.
『【Verification requested】Not an E-ranker's movements』
She'd been identified by noon.
【This girl is Amaha Hina—the one who failed the D-rank promotion exam four times in a row】
【That laughingstock? No way】
【Compare it with the official footage from last month's exam. She's a completely different person】
【Can a person change this much in one month?】
Then, that evening, one self-proclaimed member of the verification team posted a decisive discovery.
【I tracked her down. Her account has been leaving questions on the archive of the same stream for the past few days】
【『Shin-san's Beginner Dungeon Course』. It's an obscure tutorial with practically no viewers】
【I checked it out. Some old guy goes on and on about how to stand】
【It was so dull I closed it after three minutes】
【I watched to the end. ...Hey, isn't there something strange about this? The explanations are way too specific】
◇
As for me, my day was peaceful as ever.
I cooked rice, leafed through my notebooks, and prepared for the night's stream. It was the sixth day of my wholesome unemployed life.
I had noticed something strange, at least. In the early afternoon, the archive view counts had gone haywire. The first installment, which had been in the double digits yesterday, kept climbing every time I refreshed the screen. Once it passed a thousand, I drew a conclusion.
"...Could it be a glitch?"
It was secondhand equipment that had cost thirty thousand yen. I couldn't complain if a digit or two had gone bad.
That night, I hit the Start Stream button as usual, then did a double take at the corner of the screen.
Viewer count: 【112】.
"..."
The number kept rising even as I watched. The comment section had already begun to flow, despite the fact that I hadn't even said hello.
【I'm here】
【Is this the course everyone's been talking about?】
【He really is an old guy】
【Is he really Hina-chan's teacher?】
Apparently, it wasn't a glitch after all. I didn't really understand what was going on, but—regardless of how many viewers there were, what I had to do wouldn't change.
"Good evening. I'm Shin. It looks like there are a lot of first-time viewers, so let me say this first. 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."
【He said it himself】
【Points for honesty】
"Lesson Six. Today, we'll talk about 'how to retreat.'—Everyone practices moving forward, but nobody practices retreating. And explorers are more likely to die while retreating than while moving forward."
As usual, I put the contents of my notebooks into words. Why did people, when backing up, come down on their heels and land on their backsides? Why did simply turning their toes fifteen degrees outward keep them from falling? Where to place your chin so you could keep your eyes up while retreating.
At first, the comment section was noisy.
【Dull】
【Way too dull】
【I came because I'd heard this was a legendary course, but...】
By the time thirty minutes had passed, though, the comments had taken a strange turn.
【...Hey, I just tried it right here, and I really don't fall anymore】
【I tried it in the hallway. What is this?】
【I've been an explorer for five years, but I've never once thought about how to retreat】
【Why did nobody ever teach us this?】
【Teacher, I'm learning a lot again today. Um, by the way, why are there suddenly so many people...】
Hina's comment was swept away by a torrent of unfamiliar names. It was a little funny that she, who was supposed to be the owner of the classroom, seemed to be the most bewildered of all.
At the end of the stream, the viewer count was 【317】.
"Well... they'll probably lose interest by tomorrow and go back to the usual classroom. All right, that'll do for today."
Saying that, I ended the stream.
Even I had been spectacularly oblivious.
◇
That same night, at the lodgings of a joint expedition to an unexplored dungeon on a continent nine thousand kilometers from Japan.
Kenjo Rei sat on his bed, staring at a terminal.
Humanity's strongest swordsman. Twenty-five years old. Number one in the S-rank rankings. He was the expedition's central force for clearing the dungeon, and he was scheduled to survey the deeper levels again tomorrow morning. He should have gone straight to sleep.
Not being able to sleep was nothing unusual. For the two years since going independent, he had chosen to blame it on his pillow constantly changing.
Those twelve seconds had even made it onto social media overseas.
『【Verification requested】Not an E-ranker's movements』
On a whim, he played it.
On the screen, a petite girl dodged the Gray Hound's leap by half a step and slashed its exposed flank.
Rei watched it without expression. He replayed it. Then again. On the fourth viewing, he raised the terminal in front of his face and narrowed his eyes as if trying to press them against the screen.
The so-called verification team had been making a fuss about her "reacting to the sinking of its hind legs." To an amateur's eye, that was probably what it looked like. But they were wrong. That wasn't what mattered.
The key was what happened before it leaped.
The instant the girl faced the Gray Hound, she gripped the floor with her toes.
Her heels stayed planted until the very end. That kept her upper body from moving first. Because her upper body stayed back, her gaze never wavered. Because her gaze never wavered, she could see the initial movement. And because she could see it, half a step was enough.
—Like clenching a fist inside your shoe.
Eight years ago, a seventeen-year-old apprentice swordsman who had failed promotion exams again and again and had nowhere else to go washed up at a place where, for the first time in his life, he received instruction. It was identical down to the last detail.
'Before we talk about stepping in, why don't we start with how to stand? It's dull. Probably shockingly dull. —But you'll stop dying.'
Rei bolted upright.
He traced the clip to its source. The archive of the streamer "Gamma"—no, he was just someone who had happened to record it. Where had the girl's movements come from? He scrolled back through the verification team's posts. There it was.
'Shin-san's Beginner Dungeon Course.'
The streamer was named "Shin."
His heart gave a single, heavy beat.
He opened the first archive. The muffled audio characteristic of a cheap microphone. A calm, slightly languid voice he'd heard almost every day for eight years.
'Lesson One. "Before we talk about equipment, let me talk about how to stand."'
"..."
Rei covered his mouth with one hand.
There was no way he could have mistaken it. Even if everyone in the world misheard it, he alone would not.
Two years had passed since the day he went independent. Hundreds of times, his finger had paused over the number in his contacts, but he had never once pressed call. When he'd tried to learn how the man was doing through the clan, the only reply he'd received was, "He's under contract with Genbu," and then all word of him had ceased—but here he was.
In a classroom with no viewers, he was giving a lone washout the same lesson he'd received on that day.
Rei stepped into the midnight hallway, activated the terminal for contacting expedition headquarters, and began changing his flight home. The time difference, tomorrow's deep-layer survey, and his duties as the number-one-ranked explorer—all of it vanished from his mind.
The earliest flight he could get was three weeks earlier than scheduled.
He pressed the confirmation button. Rei looked out through the dark window toward the eastern sky—the one nine thousand kilometers away—and, in a voice no one could hear, addressed him that way for the first time in two years.
"—I've found you, Teacher."