Side: Amahashi Kakeru

It was finally lunchtime. To be honest, I was sleepy.

The last classes I'd actually sat through were three years ago, so I was basically Urashima Tarou.¹The teacher had naturally gone on teaching as if it were a continuation of the previous lesson, but I barely remembered any of it.

My grades had been middling to begin with, and being away from studying for three whole years had obviously knocked my academic ability down a peg.

Well, whatever. Lunch.

Our high school had a cafeteria, and the on-campus shop sold bento too. Of course, you could also bring your own.

"Homemade onigiri²again today?"

"Yeah, more or less."

In the seat next to mine, Kitamura looked at the onigiri on my desk and made an indescribable face.

Being a private school, this was a place where only kids with a fair bit of breathing room in life ended up. Plenty of them were from wealthy families. In the whole class, I was the only one who brought nothing but onigiri.

"The person who raised me passed away not too long ago, after all."

Right—three years ago, after Grandma died and I started living alone, my meals had naturally drifted toward simple stuff. It wasn't that I couldn't afford to eat in the cafeteria.

Although—huh, so I'd told him even that much. I didn't really remember the finer details of our conversations.

"That's part of it, but I just like onigiri."

It was true that I was doing things the way I had before, but also, over the three years on the other side, I hadn't gotten to eat rice. There was something simply satisfying about being able to eat rice again.

Wearing a face that seemed to say Is that so?, Kitamura headed off to the cafeteria. Listening to the bustle of the classroom, I bit into my onigiri alone.

Ah, the taste of nori³and salt—just right. Honestly delicious. The filling was umeboshi⁴that Grandma and I had pickled together. Really sour, but that's what made it good.

Were the others back at the house doing okay? I had set out food for them, at least—all they had to do was heat it in the microwave.

I polished off the first onigiri in no time. Then the second...?

Something gave me an uneasy, crawling feeling. As if the Danger Sense Skill I'd gained as the Hero had reacted, just faintly.

"Was that an earthquake?"

"There've been a lot of earthquakes lately, huh."

A girl in my class had noticed the quake, but she went on eating her bento without paying it much mind. It was right at the edge of being perceptible, sure—not even strong enough to trip the emergency earthquake alert.

I'd confirmed yesterday that I could still use the Skills and magic I'd gained as the Hero, though the Demon Lord had advised me it was better not to. My physical ability was still there too, roughly speaking, at about a tenth of what it was when I'd been fighting the Demon Lord. Naturally, it was on a level the old me couldn't even compare to.

The Danger Sense Skill—did it react to earthquakes too? I'd never experienced a natural earthquake on the other side. Maybe I'd ask Filia or the Demon Lord once I got home.

When I happened to glance up, I saw a huge flock of crows flying off somewhere.

Side: Kasumigaseki

A heavy, oppressive air dominated the conference room.

A secret department had been set up within the Cabinet Office some years back—the "Bureau of Paranormal Countermeasures"—and a meeting was underway between its members and a hand-picked selection of officials from across the various ministries.

"So the cause remains unknown, as ever. What a troublesome business."

One of the men tossed a sheaf of documents onto the table as if flinging it away. Across the top ran the words Fifteenth Interim Paranormal Space Analysis Report. Below that: Provisional Designation: Dungeon.

"A defeat for science?"

"Well, there's no saying. There may yet be room to analyze it down the line."

"Isn't that just the scholar crowd talking up the budget they want?"

"There are only so many scholars we can trust with classified material. That's the reality."

It was wearying. Some of the men there had faces that said as much. Not everyone became a civil servant to serve the nation and the world. Plenty had done it for themselves, for their own livelihoods.

There were also those discontent at having been singled out for some incomprehensible task force. It'd be one thing if it counted as an accomplishment, but since the whole thing was classified, it wasn't even clear whether it would help with promotion.

"Fortunately, so long as no one goes inside, there's no harm. As of now we've confirmed eight locations domestically. We ought to keep it under wraps."

"And what about the budget for the weapons and ammunition burned through on dungeon surveys? You can't keep scraping the funds together indefinitely while keeping it all hidden. And then there's the unidentified boost to physical ability. What about that? Are people's so-called levels going up? Aftereffects? Long-term impact? If you won't guarantee the future and safety of the SDF personnel, the Self-Defense Forces are pulling out!"

"How should I know! All that's left is to leave it to the Prime Minister!!"

This whole affair was far too unreal, with far too much that nobody understood.

The one thing you could say was that there wasn't much cause for concern on the scale of major damage or a national-survival crisis. For now.

It was exactly that halfway state that made decisions hard, and confined them to surveys and stopgap measures.

"Quit the pointless squabbling. We're not politicians. More to the point—I hear there are countries considering going public?"

"They just want to make a fuss about disclosure so they can squeeze countermeasure funding out of the West and Japan. There's no nation, as of now, that wants to start a commotion big enough to overturn the very foundations of the world… or so I'd like to believe."

"From an economic standpoint, the prevailing opinion is that someone going public somewhere would be the better move. There's a mountain of unknown materials still under analysis. The profit to be had from making those public—surely that goes without saying?"

"Hold on, hold on—there's no guarantee that whatever's inside won't come out, is there? And who's going to manage these things and protect people in the first place? Think about that first. With missiles and the defense of the southwestern islands, the SDF doesn't have budget or manpower to spare for that. The Self-Defense Forces aren't a handyman service."

"Dungeons are still increasing across the world even now. Sooner or later the world's going to find out."

The representatives of each ministry voiced their respective opinions, but in modern society there was a limit to what could be done while keeping information undisclosed.

All the more so in Japan's case, where even its measures against spies operating at home and abroad were derided as those of a backward nation.

"They say that since ancient times the world has held chimi-mouryou⁵and oni and things that aren't human. I'd taken it for unscientific fantasy, but at this rate, wouldn't we be better off investigating from that angle?"

"We haven't informed the Imperial Household. If word leaks to religious circles, keeping it secret becomes difficult. How would you even investigate? Are you saying we should lean on historians? If there were anything to it, there'd already be more of an uproar."

The situation remained one that allowed no complacency. In the end, that was the only thing they agreed on.

Naturally, the necessary work was being done—simulations on the assumption of disclosure, deliberations over legislation, and so on. Even so, as things stood, the only thing that got decided was the date of the next meeting.