“……Huh?”
When Rakuna woke up, she was lying on an unfamiliar bed.
Yesterday, she’d done a stream in a beginner dungeon, defeated the slimes that had multiplied, and successfully cleared it without incident. After that, Himezawa Yuko—the gal cop—came to the boss room and revealed that the viewers had reached 100,000. Finally, Shiiba Chigiri had thrown herself at Rakuna in a hug, and after that, Rakuna’s consciousness had cut out.
The room Rakuna was in was stark white overall, and besides the bed she’d been sleeping on, there were several other sets of bedding placed around. Unable to make sense of the situation, Rakuna tilted her head as she looked around.
When she spotted her usual backpack where her gaze fell, she hurriedly got off the bed and slung it onto her back.
“……I’m going to school.”
She murmured it quietly and left the room.
Outside was a wide hallway, with people in white clothing coming and going. She still had no idea where she was.
But for now, Rakuna decided she would escape this facility.
Holding her breath so she wouldn’t be noticed by the people moving through the corridor, she advanced, carefully clearing every corner as she went. Her experience from yesterday’s dungeon exploration was coming in handy.
However, just when it seemed like she was making steady progress deeper inside, a problem occurred.
“……Huh? I’m back in the same room……”
She had returned to the room from earlier.
“……No way… this place… a dungeon…?”
It was true that yesterday, Rakuna didn’t remember leaving the dungeon.
She woke up in an unknown place.
And the corridors looped.
The conclusion she arrived at like this was: 『Is this a dungeon?』
In reality, it was simply Rakuna’s terrible sense of direction showing itself to the fullest.
As she agonized over what she should do next—
“Oh my, oh my. Where do you think you’re going?”
A hoarse voice suddenly came from behind her.
She turned around cautiously, and an old woman was looking down at her.
Worse, the woman’s body was so massive that the white coat she wore was stretched tight to the point of bursting.
Staring up at her, Rakuna muttered:
“…………Boss spotted.”
The old woman glared, fixing Rakuna with a sharp, piercing look.
§
This was Hakone Town Hospital, standing quietly in Hakone Town.
It was the largest National Hospital Organization facility in Hakone Town.
—DODODODODODODODO.
In that place, the sound of frantic pounding footsteps echoed.
“Rakunaaa! Waittt!”
“Hiiiii—!”
Two people sprinted down the hallway at full speed.
Rakuna, running at an incredible pace with a huge backpack on her back, and the gigantic old woman keeping right on her heels.
“They hauled you off to a hospital, damn it! This is why I said I’m against you being an explorer in the first place!”
“W-w-why is Grandma even here!?”
“Because I’m the director of this hospital, that’s why! More importantly, I asked you where you think you’re going!”
“Isn’t it obvious!? School!”
“Don’t you lie to me! Who in the world goes to school wearing patient clothes!?”
“Huh!? I-I really am wearing pajamas!?”
“I’m not falling for it! You’re just planning to go exploring again, aren’t you!?”
“I-I-I’m not lying! Nobody goes exploring in pajamas either!”
Narakinou Ume, 78 years old.
The director of Hakone Town Hospital.
And, without question, Narakino Rakuna’s grandmother.
Grandmother and granddaughter tore through the hospital at breakneck speed.
Their nuisance-level sprinting kicked up gusts of air, and complaints even started coming from inside the hospital.
“Hey, Director! That’s dangerous!”
“Shut it!”
“Wha—!?”
Even when someone warned them, they got snapped at in return, and neither of them showed any sign of stopping.
But at last, even that finally came to an end.
Rakuna’s legendary lack of direction struck again, and she returned—once more—to the first room.
The exit was blocked by Ume’s enormous body, leaving no route to escape.
At this point, she was a mouse in a bag.
“Now then, Rakuna, give it up already. Today you’re spending the whole day in bed, quietly behaving yourself.”
Ume advanced little by little.
Rakuna was forced back until she was against the wall.
“……G-Grandma, you were kind of… kind of okay with me exploring, weren’t you…?”
“Sure. It’s the first thing you ever said you wanted to do on your own, so I planned to support you.”
“T-then…”
Ume said nothing as she pulled a ragged piece of cloth from inside her coat.
It was the T-shirt Rakuna had been wearing while exploring.
It had been scorched in places by dissolving fluid, riddled with holes.
“You became an explorer, and in just two days your clothes are shredded. Your shoes are gone, and in the end you got shipped off to the hospital. If I kept cheering that on, I’d be a failure of a guardian—that’s what I think.”
“…………Ugh…”
Rakuna lowered her head.
She had no response.
To begin with, her grandmother had been against her becoming an explorer.
Rakuna had forcibly convinced her, insisting it would absolutely be safe, that nothing dangerous would ever happen.
And the result was this: hospitalized after only two days of being an explorer.
Of course, it wasn’t the dungeon’s fault—but it was obvious that saying so wouldn’t change anything.
“…………Sorry, Grandma…”
Rakuna spoke without lifting her head.
Excuses and persuasion wouldn’t work here.
So instead, Rakuna decided to state her feelings plainly.
“……But I want to keep being an explorer…”
“What did you say!? Even after something this dangerous, you still want to keep going!?”
“……Yeah… Because… I feel like it’s fun.”
“……!”
Ume went silent in shock.
Because it was the first time she had ever heard the word “fun” come out of Rakuna’s mouth.
“……So, sorry…!”
Then Rakuna spun around, dashed in the opposite direction from the exit, and—
—RATTLE.
She opened a window and jumped straight outside.
“You idiot! This is the fourth floor!”
Eyes wide, Ume leaned out the window.
Rakuna fell on her back.
Her big backpack acted as a cushion, and she bounced—poyo~n—high into the air.
She flipped once and landed safely.
Ume stared as if she’d forgotten to breathe, then, confirming Rakuna was unharmed, let out a huge sigh.
Then she drew in an enormous breath and shouted:
“Rakunaaa! Don’t you ever come back to this hospital again!”
“……Hii. Even if you begged me, I wouldn’t…”
Feeling her grandmother’s furious voice on her back, Rakuna muttered softly and ran off—like she was fleeing—out of the hospital grounds.
“Tell that damn old man too! If you ever end up sent to a hospital again, I’ll never forgive it—do you hear meeeeeee!?”
§
—Kiiin, kooohn, kaaahn, kooohn.
It was dusk, with the sun already starting to set.
Rakuna stood still in front of the school gate.
“……I didn’t make it…”
She’d walked for hours from a hospital she didn’t even know the location of. With her natural lack of direction, getting there had been difficult, and by the time she finally arrived, it was already dismissal time.
Students streamed out of the school building in groups.
Everyone looked excited, chatting as they passed by Rakuna.
“Where’re we going today?”
“Karaoke?”
“Sounds good!”
Rakuna glanced sideways at the students happily caught up in after-school talk.
Normally, she would have watched them with envy.
But right now, she didn’t.
“……I have to start a stream.”
Muttering that, she turned on her heel.
Just as she was about to leave through the gate—
“N-Narakino-san!”
She froze, feeling like she’d heard her name called.
Then she turned around, cautiously.
Standing there was a girl from her class.
The student she’d been talking with yesterday about the stream.
Unfortunately, Rakuna couldn’t remember her name.
“……N-n-Na… Narakino is… um, th-th-that’s… me…”
As Rakuna fumbled and sputtered, the girl seemed to steel herself and hurried over.
“Um…! Yesterday, thank you for saving Chigirin…! Good luck with your stream. I’m cheering for you…!”
She bowed, said that, and then quickly ran off.
Rakuna stared after her, blankly.
She stood there in a daze for a while, sorting through it all in her head.
When she finally grasped what had happened, the tension in her face loosened all at once.
“……She said… thank you. …Hehe… hehehehehehehe…”
And then she remembered.
The words that had been said to her.
『—No, seriously, you were insanely cool, Narakino-chan!』
『—I’m going to make you my goal, and I’ll get stronger and stronger, I swear』
『—Thank you for saving Chigirin…!』
Rakuna left the school and started home.
Along the way, she murmured quietly.
“……A goal, huh…”
She’d started down the path of becoming an explorer because she wanted friends.
That purpose hadn’t changed.
But faintly—yet unmistakably—a different small flame was beginning to light within Rakuna.