I Was the Supporter of a Popular Dungeon Streamer, but the Power Harassment Was Too Much, so I Quit. I’m Useless Anyway, so It Shouldn’t Be a Problem, Right? Huh? The Views Are Dropping Like Crazy? - 58

Chapter 58: District Zero

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I invited Isshiki-san into my room. She sat formally on a flat floor cushion, shifting restlessly and glancing around the room.

“Hm? What’s wrong, Isshiki-san?”

“N-no! …It’s nyothing-nya…”

Looking around, there wasn’t much to see in my room. Just some reference books for Seekers and Supporters, stacks of reports I had compiled on the labyrinth, and a few childhood photos.

“…Cute.”

“Huh? Did you say something?”

“N-nyo-nyothing at all!”

She was acting even weirder than usual today…

“By the way, how do you plan to pass yourself off as Cyan? Just dressing up as her and showing up on camera won’t convince anyone.”

“I’m going to dive into the labyrinth and wield Cyan’s power for real.”

“The labyrinth? Which floor are you aiming for?”

“I’m thinking of anything above the 50th floor. I’ll enter the Gate first, then disguise myself as Cyan…”

“Too dangerous.”

Isshiki-san declared firmly.

“There are too many Seekers in that area. If someone sees you while you’re pretending to be Cyan, it’ll be a problem.”

“That’s true.”

“Besides, if the opponents are too weak, you  won’t be able to convince anyone that you’re Cyan even if you can use Cyan’s OOPArts.”

“In that case… Should we go to the upper floors? Maybe somewhere above the 100th floor?”

There were fewer people above the 100th floor, and the enemies were stronger. That met the conditions, but…

“The upper-floor Gates require registration before entry. Plus, you need an A-rank license to get in.”

The lower and middle floors had no restrictions, but to enter the upper-floor Gates, you had to present an A-rank license. Which meant I couldn’t get in.

『We’ll go to the 170th floor.』

“What!?”

Isshiki-san flinched, her shoulders trembling.

“A-ah, sorry.”

“What’s wrong…?”

“No, Cyan said that if we’re going, it’s gotta be the 170th floor…”

“Absolutely not!”

Isshiki-san raised her voice, her eyes were dead serious. She probably understood better than I did just how dangerous the upper floors of the labyrinth were, which was why she was so adamant on refusing.  And honestly, no matter how I thought about it, going to the 170th floor was impossible. If I wanted to reach the 170th floor, I’d have to start from the middle-floor Gate and climb over 120 floors. Yeah. Impossible.

“More importantly, just getting into Amatsugahara is impossible. Without a Seeker, we’d be stopped…”

Should I try sneaking in like before? But after the Iizuka incident, I’d heard that Amatsugahara’s security had gotten stricter. It was too risky.

『Not a problem. I have my own Gate.』

What is she talking about…?

『I mean,there’s a route into Amatsugahara that I forged myself.』

That made sense. Cyan was an unofficial Seeker, meaning she technically shouldn’t have been able to use the Gates installed in Amatsugahara. No one knew how she had been getting in, but if she had her own Gate, that would explain it. Though, creating a Gate herself was outright insane.

“Cyan apparently has her own Gate. She said we can enter Amatsugahara through it.”

『And the Gate can jump directly to any floor. Oh, but you can’t go to floors I haven’t visited before.』

If that were true, it raised even more questions.

Even the Divine Order and the Guild Association, with all their technology, had only managed to create three Gates, each leading to the lowest levels of the lower, middle, and upper floors. But Cyan had a Gate that could access any floor. That didn’t make sense. Her strength could be explained away as genius talent, but the technological gap between her and the society here was impossible to ignore. There had always been rumors… That Cyan was backed by some kind of organization. After all, it was absurd to think a single individual could create a Gate more advanced than those of the Guild Association and the Divine Order.

Of course, I hadn’t actually seen it myself yet, so there was still a chance she was lying.

『Don’t think about unnecessary stuff.』

Cyan said, as if reading my thoughts.

『For now, just focus on acting as me… Please.』

“…”

She was definitely hiding something. But her voice was desperate and sincere. There was no malice in it. For now, I decided to do as she said. This would probably end up benefiting me, too.

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Our destination was a fifteen-minute walk from the apartment. We arrived at a massive elevator leading to the underground shopping centre.

“Is there really a gate in the underground shopping centre?”

“Yeah.”

In front of us was a massive circular floating platform, surrounded by automatic doors. It was an elevator. It could hold up to two hundred people at once and operated every minute. It spent thirty seconds loading and unloading passengers, then another thirty seconds ascending or descending, repeating the cycle. The system was similar to a train. When the elevator arrived, the automatic doors opened, allowing people from the underground shopping centre to disembark, while those heading down boarded. The operators, akin to station staff, ensured safety before closing the doors and lowering the platform. To prevent passengers from falling, a thin dome-shaped barrier was deployed the moment the automatic doors closed. Both the floating platform and the barrier were powered by magic crystals.

“Are we really going there?”

Isshiki-san asked. I understood how she felt. After all, the underground shopping centre had notoriously bad security. It was a lawless zone basically. In terms of area, it was about the size of a Tokyo ward, but there was no law enforcement at all. This was because the underground shopping centre had been created by the Divine Order to contain the filth of the labyrinth city. It was where they threw anything they didn’t want tourists or foreign dignitaries to see. In other words, it was a dumping ground.

The underground shopping centre: District Zero.

Illegal brothels and black-market shops lined the streets, where drugs and firearms were sold as if it were the norm. Those who committed mid-level violations, Seekers who committed minor crimes using OOPArts, or outsiders who smuggled labyrinth products like crystals, were also cast down here. Incidentally, these petty criminals were branded with a curse that paralyzed them the moment they tried to leave the underground shopping centre. District Zero also functioned as a prison.

I had been there once before.

At first, I was excited. A vast space, with artificial sunlight streaming from ceiling panels. A lively cityscape, like Kabukicho. The area near the elevator wasn’t too bad, but one step into the backstreets was where hell resided. I got tangled up with thugs whose eyes looked unfocused. I was approached by women twice my age trying to lure me into shady establishments and chased by an old lady screaming wildly and swinging a kitchen knife.

I had barely escaped to the surface, nearly in tears. But now that I had come this far, turning back wasn’t an option.

“I’m going. But Isshiki-san, you should probably stay behind.”

“Why?”

“It’s District Zero… A beautiful woman like you walking through there is dangerous. Scouts and yakuza will try every trick in the book to abduct you.”

“…Beautiful woman…”

For some reason, Isshiki-san blushed, looking pleased.

“It’s not a problem. Compared to the monsters in the labyrinth, lust-driven scum are nothing but small fry.”

She had a point. There was no way Isshiki-san would lose to the people down there.

“Understood. Then let’s go together.”

Isshiki-san and I boarded the elevator and entered the underground shopping centre.

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