Chương 116: Chapter 36 Aircraft (Part 1)

I ended up talking with Chiyoda, and before I knew it, it had gotten quite late. We discussed the revenue from the stream and the boxes from when we reached the 35th floor. I told him to put all the revenue toward some kind of bereaved families' fund, and since I don't know either how many boxes there are or what's inside them, we decided to open them later, with Tachibana there as well.

Chiyoda made an unpleasant face the moment I brought up the boxes, but I don't want to open a jack-in-the-box without knowing what might come out, either. However, when it comes to medicine and weapons, the more we have, the better, so we can't just leave them unopened. Hopefully, nothing strange comes out. After that, I packed the plants I had harvested inside the gate into boxes and handed them over, but there was quite a lot of them, and they looked like they would be difficult to carry.

The white, fluffy, cocoon-like object was returned to me with the explanation that they would come back for it later. It was already past lunchtime, so I had a quick smoke and was about to change clothes to get ready for the afternoon when someone knocked on the door. If someone was coming here, could it be Miyafuji?

"Come in. It's fine."

"Excuse me. We spent the morning running and watching videos. What should we do this afternoon?"

"Let's see... How many people haven't reached the 15th floor?"

"About half. Those with healer classes or other classes considered unsuitable for combat are almost all at the 5th floor." About half, huh? The 15th floor has Small Bones and Iron Balls... Maybe I'll leave this to Miyafuji for once. He was injured, but he did defeat a Small Bone. Akamine had his finger ruined, too, but he has experience, and if he fought one, he could probably win. Suguru and Yuji should be fine as a pair.

Hyodo will have to stay behind, but if we organize them into groups with two leaders, each with a maximum of 15 people, I don't think there will be too many casualties. The only problem is when they'll be able to come back... I really want to know the size of each floor soon, but it's an expanded space that even the Sorts haven't fully grasped. Things like radar should work, I think, but in the first place, we don't have the equipment. Still, the fact that we were able to stream means radio waves do reach inside.

It's just unfortunate that we have no idea how far they'll reach as we go deeper. Online videos are almost all recorded streams. There are only a few live streams, and even those are from shallow floors. I've never seen a live stream from the 5th floor onward. Well, doing a live stream beyond the 5th floor would be extremely dangerous. The parkour video I saw before was recorded, too.

"Miyafuji-san. If we skip to the 5th floor and then go to the 15th floor, how long do you think it would take? Personally, I'd like to make somewhere around the 20th floor our training ground. The 15th floor would be our stepping stone toward that. What do you think?"

"If we're going through ten floors, the fact that we don't know where the gates are positioned on each floor is a problem. We can't take the shortest route. Even with a rough estimate, it would take five days. That's without rest, even if we take medicine to eliminate sleepiness and the like." Five days, according to Miyafuji's estimate. So, what should we do? Not being able to follow after them is a problem. If we could, we'd be able to catch up somehow, but once you enter a gate, you rarely encounter anyone else.

If we're only considering the odds, it's practically like trying to grasp a star. Hmm... Tachibana might know something. He's appraised the gate itself. When I first went to visit him, his head wasn't clear, and the next time, he had reached the middle rank and was completely groggy. But some time has passed. Maybe he's remembered something.

"Miyafuji-san. I'll leave the decision-making to you, but how about a 4th-to-5th-floor marathon? There are enough small fry around there, and even if someone gets injured, it's easy to get out. Anyone who wants to go beyond that does so at their own risk. I'll give you this, just in case. It's an emergency exit item." The two escape items I received... If we're going to make use of them, this is probably the place to do it.

They're charge-type, and the number of people they can carry varies depending on the scale, but minor injuries can be treated with medicine. Still, I want that to be a last resort and use this opportunity to train the healers as well. Considering it as insurance in case we misjudge the limit, it would be better to hand both of them over and have them used. Besides, they'd be useful for testing how many people they can transport.

"How do we use it?"

"Think of it as holding it in your hand and willing yourself to leave. You'll come out near the gate you entered through. We don't know how many people it can carry, so test that at the end. In any case, you should be able to escape from any floor."

"Do you have a few more? If you do, it would make it easier to go farther ahead." As Miyafuji asked that while storing the spheres in his ring, his eyes looked as though they were already focused on what lay ahead. He wants to get stronger. He wants to go farther. Miyafuji has probably only made it as far as the 5th floor, too. As far as I know, the only people who have gone beyond that are Hyodo, the Self-Defense Forces member from back then, and the foreign streamers. Akihabara is regrettable.

We started together, but the price of having buds harvested before they were ready is coming back to haunt us now. But I can't complain about it. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. It's only been half a month. We haven't been put that far behind in just half a month. Whether it's Miyafuji or Akamine, if we're talking purely about ability, they can make it to the 15th floor. If that's the case, the buds haven't withered yet.

"Unfortunately, there are only two. For anything more, we can only pray that they come out of the boxes... Since they're charge-type, don't worry about the number of uses. If, from your perspective, Miyafuji-san, the combat strength isn't sufficient, don't let them go."

"Understood. If there are members who want to go ahead, I'll lend them out. Will you be watching over us, Chloe-san?"

"No, I have things to do. Leave Hyodo-san here. Also, make sure to take Mochida-san with you. She's too close to me, and I somehow end up protecting her. She won't grow that way." She's quite close to me. Because of that, I tend to become overprotective. So I'll put her somewhere outside my line of sight and let her develop her own strength. I'm worried, and it's scary to send her out there, but... Yeah. If I keep going like this, I might end up calling it off.

My wife has told me before that even though I'm usually indifferent, once I become attached to something, I get intense.... Wait. Am I attached to Mochida? Well, I recognize her as a friend, and since she's the first friend of the opposite sex I've had since getting this body, I suppose it can't be helped.

"Then I'll request transportation from the Self-Defense Forces this afternoon and head to the gate. Everyone should be able to prepare while we get things ready. I'll call Hyodo-san here."

"Please do." Miyafuji left, and I puffed on my pipe. I took out my smartphone and contacted Tachibana. He answered after a few rings, but there was no energy in his voice. He's probably being made to appraise things like a packhorse. At this rate, Tachibana's scalp problem is going to become serious soon. Maybe I should send him some hair-growth treatment or something.

"Hello. Are you all right?"

"... The medicine from the gate is amazing. I haven't slept for the past few days... What happened?"

"About that, I wanted to ask you about the structure of the gate. Is now a good time?"

"Of course! A call from you counts as an excuse to take a break. Everyone! Break time!" A roar could be heard over the phone... Civil servants basically don't get overtime pay. With this kind of workload, surely there must be some kind of allowance, but even if there is, would they actually have any opportunity to use it? I don't even want to imagine an appraisal specialist going on a rampage after using some item. I'll contact Chiyoda later and suggest that they improve the working environment.

"So, what did you want to ask?"

"Whether it's possible to follow after people who have entered a gate. Even if everyone enters the gate for training, not being able to follow after them is a serious problem." There is a way to enter together. All we have to do is hold hands and enter together. However, the problem is that we can't follow after someone who has already entered. It's also troublesome that we don't know where the others are within each of those enormous floors inside the gate.

Since we can occasionally encounter one another, I think each floor is probably a single field. The Witch also said that she added partitions, so originally, perhaps there weren't even separate floors. Maybe it was simply a structure where you kept walking around inside without end.

"Chloe. When entering a gate, if you hold hands, you come out in the same place. That's correct, right?"

"Well, yes. I've done that many times."

"Then, what do you think happens when you move to the next floor without holding hands?" Hmm... We'd done that several times, and we still came out with the same members. It was the same on every floor. As long as we held hands when we first entered, everything was fine afterward. However, when it came to leaving, we'd always left together. I'd never left by myself and then entered again later. Could it be...?

"Are we registered as a party? As long as we enter together at first, even if someone leaves partway through, we can follow after them later?"

"That's correct. Just as individual monsters are managed through crystals, we are managed through rings. By entering while in contact with one another, the separate spaces within the rings are drawn toward each other, and a path can be formed from there." I had copied the way humans exist and handed it to the Sorts. They probably came up with this from there. How could they make cleaning more efficient? Efficiency without malice.

The simple idea they arrived at was that if comrades were left behind, someone would eventually come back to retrieve them. They're probably the same. I don't know if you could call it total volume, but if they're a swarm, their efficiency decreases as their numbers decrease. If that's the case, they wouldn't want to leave their comrades behind.

"Do you know how far apart we can be?"

"According to the appraisal results of the ring, generally speaking, there shouldn't be a problem as long as we're within 4 kilometers of the gate." I have a feeling Tachibana is pushing himself too hard again, but I haven't heard that he's collapsed, so he must be all right. Within 4 kilometers. That's the maximum distance from which you can exit the gate. In other words, it's probably safe to consider everything within 4 kilometers of the gate to be the same space.

If that's the case, then within that range, could we somehow make radio waves work? If so, even without landmarks, our means of communication would improve considerably. Better yet, if we had everyone carry signal fireworks, we'd have a fairly easy way to locate them even from a distance. It's too dim for them to work like smoke signals, but they should still be quite useful.

"Understood. Thank you. I'll return the favor someday."

"No. Give it to me now." Unusually, Tachibana was asking me to give him something. But if I'm sending something, was it Uber Eats? Was that what it was called? Should I send something like delivery pizza? I'd definitely get scolded if I sent alcohol. Summer is coming, too, so maybe ice cream would be good. It's hot, after all.

"All right. I'll send you some ice cream or something, okay?"

"Chloe, I don't need that. There are three other appraisal specialists here besides me, men and women. Four people... Just four of us, day after day, appraisal, appraisal, appraisal. Depending on the item, we're appraising even when our stomachs hurt. Want to hear about it? The organic matter decomposition energy gun, for example? It's a perfect crime waiting to happen... A woman accidentally fired it and a banana disappeared... Haha!" Oh... He's really losing it. The situation seems pretty serious.

But four appraisal specialists, huh? The government must have worked pretty hard to scrape them together. The probability of getting the class is low, and even if someone gets it, they don't necessarily choose it. They managed to secure four such people. There might be more if we searched, but that doesn't mean they'd cooperate. In fact, after hearing about their current situation, I wouldn't want to cooperate either. Being cooped up somewhere, taking medicine, and working like this...

That's practically slavery, isn't it?

"For now, what would you like?"

"......... We discussed it. They want you to encourage them."

"Encourage them?" Should I just cheer them on? If that's all they want, fine, but will that really be enough? Well, if I'm being asked to do it, I don't mind. They're working hard, too. In that case, let's go with a nostalgic famous line.

"Do your best~! Don't give up~! Live with all your strength!"

"I'm happy, but that's not what they mean. They said they'd like you to do it in a cheerleader costume with pom-poms. Well, you probably don't have the costume, but even just the pom-poms..."

"Chloe, you should have those, shouldn't you?" Chiyoda had returned and was standing at the entrance alongside Hyodo. I don't have anything like that... The volunteer clothes? You mean they're among those cosplay-like outfits? No, Chiyoda. Why would you bring that up now of all times? Wait. There's no guarantee Tachibana heard that yet.

"You have one? Then please do it. Otherwise, the appraisers will go on strike. Or perhaps go on a rampage?"

"Wait! That's cheating!"

"Uh... what exactly is going on here?"

"Who knows?" That Chiyoda! What do you mean, "Who knows?"! Is this payback? Payback for the box discussion?! Hyodo is here, too, and there's no way I want to cosplay in a place like this. But I don't even want to think about the appraisal specialists going on a rampage. Damn it! This isn't "safer to die"—it's "safer to be embarrassed"!

"Chiyoda-san, please improve the appraisal specialists' working environment immediately.... Hyodo-san, if you watch what's about to happen, you won't be able to refuse my request. Do you want to watch?"

"... You probably couldn't refuse even without watching, right? I'll watch."

"Understood. I'm going to change, so please step outside. Tachibana-san... I'll video call you later." From now on, I'm leaving the costumes at the hotel. Is this the price I pay for not organizing my ring...? Well, "safer to be embarrassed," indeed... I don't even want to think about humanity's destruction being triggered by a human rather than a monster. I slipped out of my clothes, changed, and picked up the pom-poms as well. My midriff was exposed, but I suppose that was fine. All right.

I steeled myself and connected the video call.

"Come in..."

"Excuse us... fufu."

"... I've been asked, so I'll take pictures."