“Do not go into that red pathway. You’ll die!”
My voice echoed through the underground passageways of Shinjuku Station.
The underground shopping mall after the last train was as quiet as the daytime hustle and bustle had never existed. Shops with their shutters pulled down. Flashing guidance signs. The low driving hum of a cleaning robot.
Deep within that quiet, a wall had collapsed.
A connection gate to the station subterranean dungeon. The area that should normally have been partitioned off by thick bulkheads and security guards was now scattering cracked tiles and steel frames, opening up a pitch-black hole.
A humid breeze blew from the other side of the hole.
The smell of rusted iron, damp concrete, and blood.
“Is anyone there? Can you answer me!”
I, Minase Toru, shouted while gripping a station employee’s flashlight.
To be precise, I wasn’t a station employee anymore.
I was a night guide for the Shinjuku Station underground management company. My job was to guide lost children, drunk passengers, tourists who nearly wandered into restricted zones, and people stranded after missing the last train all the way up to the surface.
However, tonight’s lost person was anything but ordinary.
“Is the livestream connected? Anyone seeing the chat, throw the location data to the Agency!”
A woman’s voice could be heard.
Beyond the collapse. Ahead of the passage where the station’s piping was exposed, a white light was swaying.
And, in my field of vision, a single line was visible.
A thin white line running across the floor.
It hadn’t been drawn with fluorescent paint. It wasn’t tape that someone had stuck down. It was a line of light visible only to me.
It slipped past the side of the collapsed ticket gates, wound its way through the rubble, and stretched deep into the dark dungeon.
The white line was a path where you could return alive.
And, right next to it.
A red line was running.
The red line was a path of death.
“Damn it!”
I grabbed the transceiver at my waist.
“Central Monitoring Room, can you hear me? West connecting passage, Gate D collapsed. There are people trapped inside.”
“Minase-san? That area is designated for lockdown. Please do not approach until the rescue team arrives.”
“There are people inside. I can hear their voices.”
“I repeat. General personnel, do not approach. The Dungeon Agency has already been notified. Maintain the site.”
Something exploded on the other side of the radio.
Simultaneously, a scream came from deep inside.
“Mio-san, the passage on the right! There’s hardly any reaction!”
“The right is no good! But they’re coming from behind!”
Mio.
It sounded familiar.
Asakura Mio.
She wasn’t an S-rank explorer, but she was a popular dungeon streamer with combat capability very close to it. With her dungeon clearing streams, she held hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Her combat was strong. Her judgment was fast. There was rarely any online controversy.
However, internet forums had repeatedly pointed out one fatal weakness she possessed.
She had zero sense of direction.
Even in low-level tiers that had already been cleared, she would somehow head in the opposite direction of the exit.
“No way, is it really her?”
I placed one foot onto the collapsed section.
My helmet was for general work. I had no anti-slash vest. No weapons. All I had at my waist were my employee ID, a flashlight, an old station layout map, cable ties, and a first-aid pouch.
I had awakened as an explorer.
Yet my occupation was Guide.
Zero attack skills. Zero defense skills. No physical enhancement, no magic, no trap disarming.
The evaluation column of my explorer registration read as follows:
“Combat incapable. Permissible only for civilian guidance assistance.”
In other words, a dud class.
Far too weak to make a living in the dungeon.
Even so.
The white line stretched from my feet toward the depths.
Right now, someone was living at the end of that line.
“How many minutes do they have left before the rescue team arrives?”
When spoken aloud, the answer was obvious.
The red line was growing thicker.
The path of death was drawing closer.
“Central Monitoring Room. I’m going in.”
“Minase-san, wait!”
“This is on-site guidance. If people are lost, it’s a guide’s job.”
Without waiting for a reply, I crossed the collapsed gate.
Tiles cracked beneath my feet.
Just by stepping one step deeper, the station’s air changed.
The low-ceilinged connecting passage had somehow transformed into an unfamiliar underground path. The guidance signs were warped, simultaneously displaying non-existent destinations like Central East Ticket Gate, Marunouchi Line Connection Exit, and Deep Level Platform 3.
The dungeon mimics the station.
That had been its defining characteristic since it connected to the Shinjuku station underground ten years ago.
Yet I didn’t know the detailed mechanics.
All I knew was that the white line existed right at my feet.
“Don’t stray from the white line, me.”
I told myself that as I ran.
Another explosion echoed from the depths.
Beyond the corner, light came into view.
Standing there were four explorers and a single boy.
The woman standing at the vanguard was holding a single-edged sword.
Black short jacket. Boots reaching up to her knees. A small camera fixed to her shoulder. Although sweat clung to her bangs against her cheeks, only her eyes stared straight ahead.
It was Asakura Mio.
Beyond the tip of her sword, a monster was crawling across the floor.
It had a torso like a ticket gate and countless legs. From a mouth resembling a ticket slot, black slime was dripping.
“It’s coming again! Fall back!”
Mio shouted and swung her sword.
A bluish-white slash flew forth, cleanly severing the monster’s legs all at once.
She was strong.
Even to an amateur like me, I could tell.
The speed of her single strike and her positioning to protect her allies clearly showed she wasn’t just an explorer for showmanship.
However, behind her.
One of her companions screamed.
“Mio-san, the left is collapsed! We might be able to squeeze through the passage with the red lighting on the right!”
In my field of vision, the right passage was burning red.
If you go, you die.
I didn’t know the reason.
But the line was telling me that clearly.
“Don’t go!”
I shouted.
Everyone turned around.
Mio’s gaze pierced right through me.
“Who are you?”
“Minase, the night guide! That passage on the right is no good!”
“A guide? Why are you here?”
“Explanations later. Don’t enter the red pathway. You’ll die.”
Even to myself, I thought it was the worst possible phrasing.
A man in a station uniform suddenly appeared from deep within a collapsed site and shouted you will die.
He was nothing less than a suspicious person.
The man standing next to Mio openly frowned.
“What is a civilian rambling about? The reaction readings on the right are faint, but it’s clear.”
“Forget the readings, look at the path!”
“The path? We’re explorers. Amateurs, stay back!”
At that moment, the boy let out a cry.
He must have been in the lower grades of elementary school. Wearing a makeshift explorer’s helmet, he was gripping the belt around Mio’s waist.
“Mom, where are you?”
He was a lost child.
It was a face I had seen countless times at the station.
No matter how abnormal the dungeon was, only the face of a lost child never changed.
Not knowing where to go to return home. Not knowing who to rely on.
That anxiety made the corners of his eyes tear up.
I looked down at my feet.
The white line passed right by the boy’s feet and stretched behind Mio and the others, deep past a broken kiosk.
It wasn’t the red pathway.
It was a narrow, dark place that no one would ever consider a passage.
“That kiosk ruin right there.”
“A kiosk?”
“There’s an emergency ticket gate beneath the counter. Escape through there.”
“That’s not on the map!”
“That’s why it saves us!”
Mio hesitated for just a split second.
That hesitation wasn’t about whether she should trust an amateur.
Should she, the one who could fight, step forward? Or should she entrust the lives of her companions and the boy to the words of an unknown man?
Her face showed she understood the weight of that judgment.
That was why I spoke just once more.
“I can’t fight. I can’t defeat that monster. But I know the exit.”
The ceiling creaked.
From deep within the red pathway, a sound resembling the station’s departure chime rang out.
Ding, dong, ding.
The moment I heard it, a chill ran down my spine.
The red line was shifting into a color close to black.
“Asakura Mio!”
I called out her name.
“Choose right now. Die fighting, or live guided by me.”
The moment I finished saying it, the pit of my stomach turned cold.
Who do you think you are, I thought.
A station night guide was giving orders to an explorer on the verge of S-rank. Moreover, I had no proof other than the line at my feet. If I opened my status screen, numbers for strength and agility would just line up showing no real difference from an ordinary person.
Still, the station’s guidance boards couldn’t punch people either.
Yet, they could indicate which train you needed to board.
If that was the only thing I could do, I had no choice but to shout it out.
Mio’s eyes narrowed.
The next second, she re-gripped her sword.
“Everyone, to the kiosk ruins.”
Her companions raised voices of astonishment.
“Mio-san?”
“Don’t trust this man. Trust my judgment. Send a drone into the right passage.”
A small drone took flight from her shoulder.
It headed toward the red pathway.
I held my breath.
The moment the drone crossed the red line.
The walls of the passage split open.
Countless black arms lunged out and crushed the drone in an instant.
The video terminal turned into static snow.
No one uttered a sound.
Only Mio let out a low breath.
“Guide us.”
I nodded and reached out a hand toward the boy.
“What’s your name?”
“Renta.”
“Renta-kun. I’m Minase Toru. I’m a station guide. I’ll take you all the way to the surface.”
“Really?”
“Really. Guiding lost children at the station is my job.”
The boy extended a trembling hand.
I gripped that hand.
The white line shone brightly.
At the same time, however, the ticket-gate-type monster rose up behind us.
From even further deep within, the departure chime was drawing closer.
Ding, dong, ding.
From the walls of the red pathway, black arms reached out toward us.
Mio raised her sword and shouted to me.
“Minase-san, which way?”
I looked ahead at the tip of the white line.
The kiosk ruins. A fallen vending machine. An old emergency ticket gate half-hidden beneath it.
And beyond the gate, the white line split into three.
One was white. One was red. And one was a black color I had never seen before.
My throat went dry.
If I chose wrong, everyone dies.
For the first time, human lives rested on me, a dud class who couldn’t fight.
“Run!”
I scooped Renta up into my arms.
“Don’t you dare stray from the white line until I make the turn!”