I figure D-Genesis might end up touching on points like these someday, perhaps when we reach the final epilogue at the end of the series. I appreciate your patience on the journey ahead.

  However, one thing bears repeating: This is a what-if story. Will a future like this actually come to pass in the main volumes? The answer to that remains hidden behind a misty veil, far across the vast ocean of time.

  Chapter 5: It’s Gone

  Foreword

  This is a story about a gorgeous slime core brought outside the dungeon by Komugi. It’s also another case of reutilizing a plot that was omitted from the main volumes.

  When Komugi’s special training began, she knew from the very get-go that she had to bring one of those cores—spheres with jewellike properties—back outside somehow. Naturally that would lead to a huge commotion. Unfortunately, the fracas with our good Phantom and the Haruki Yoshida’s Dungeon Exploration Squad stuff took up way more of the volume’s character count than I thought they would, meaning this segment, which didn’t have any effect on the main storyline, was the only one I could reasonably put on the chopping block... Alas.

  Looking at it alongside all the others for the first time, this short story is pretty high on horror factor. Maybe that’s why I like it so much.

  Prologue

  “Wow, it’s so gorgeous!”

  It was rather late on a Sunday afternoon, and everyone was getting ready to wrap up the workday. Yet Komugi had been sitting there messing with something in the exact same spot since just after lunch, prompting a coworker by the name of Hatami to call out to her.

  “Oh, Rokujo. Still at it, I see?”

  Brought to her senses by the sudden voice, Komugi pried her gaze away from the loupe she had been looking through and turned around.

  “Hm? What do you mean, ‘still’?”

  “Um, work is pretty much over.”

  “What? Really?”

  The dungeon exploration business operated 24 hours a day, 365 (occasionally 366) days a year, so organizations with ties to it would often use shift-based work to meet any sudden requests that might come in. However, the Gemological Institute of Japan—or GIJ—rarely received any emergency requests, so while holidays still used a shift system, on most days they operated under regular business hours ending at 6 p.m.

  As Komugi looked up at the clock in surprise, Hatami was of two minds about her. One was exasperated, thinking, Has she really been looking at one gem for five hours straight? while the other was rather impressed at her ability to concentrate, musing, Well, they definitely call her “Maniac” for a reason.

  “Does the piece you’re looking at really take that much concentration?” Hatami wondered.

  At a brief glance, Komugi appeared to have been studying some type of feldspar. If the GIJ had been commissioned to appraise it, that automatically meant the piece wasn’t just rare—there had to be something downright unnatural about it.

  Typically, conglomerations of multiple minerals were simply called rocks, and while some gem-quality specimens might exist, it wasn’t a simple task to identify them by name. Doing so would require identifying each of their constituent minerals, which often meant a need for destructive examination.

  Gemological examination was, however, fundamentally nondestructive; destroying a sample for the sake of an assay would cause it to lose any value it might have had. In theory, someone could press the matter and have them do so anyway, but no client out there would be willing to pay money to appraise a material they knew had little value to begin with.

  “Of course it does! Look at the Schiller effect on it!”

  As she held out the gemstone for her coworker to see, a hazy pale blue light shimmered across its surface, as if it had been painted on.

  “That’s quite the beautiful... Uh, adularescence?”

  The Schiller effect in feldspar was typically caused by the reflection and scattering of light due to its lamellar structure—the presence of alternating layers of two or more different materials. Seen mainly in things such as moonstone, this phenomenon caused rocks to appear to give off a hazy glow. If said layers were thin, the glow would be light blue; otherwise, it would appear white.

  The stone in question was glowing faintly, expressing itself in various ways when viewed from different angles. However, the transparency level was completely off for it to be anything in the moonstone family. That was why Hatami had unwittingly ended his previous utterance with such uncertainty.

  Scarcely able to believe what he was seeing, he blurted out the only question he could.

  “What is this?”

  It had a strange iridescence to it that was impossible to find in alkali feldspar.

  The word “iridescence” was derived from the name of the goddess of rainbows, Iris—and as its origin implied, it described the effect of rocks shimmering in rainbow colors. It primarily occurred in plagioclase feldspar, but never in the alkali variety.

  That being said, what they were looking at had far too few inclusions for it to be something like labradorite. Of course, nearly transparent labradorite—which didn’t have many inclusions either—did exist, but this particular sample had low transparency.

  “I know, right? It’s just plain weird!”

  “Who commissioned it, anyway?”

  “Oh, it’s not a commission. It’s mine.”

  Hatami’s shoulders slumped in exhaustion at Komugi’s response. You were looking at your own private stone for five hours? Maybe you should do your damn job! he screamed internally.

  But obviously he couldn’t say such a thing to his senior. Besides, not only were he and the rest of the staff plenty used to dealing with the messes she tended to make, they actually had a good amount of respect for her as well.

  She had countless rocks and mineral samples scattered in the vicinity of her desk, including some that were dungeon-sourced. Though she had originally been commissioned to appraise them, many were of minimal value, and she had ended up purchasing them for herself instead of returning them. Now that collection was on display all over her office, concentrated especially around her desk.

  It was just like people working for video game developers decorating their workstations with figures of pretty girls. Rocks and gems might have given off a bit more of a highbrow aura, but it was the same concept at heart.

  Just a few days prior, her coworkers had seen her fawning over the rows and rows of rocks she had amassed. There might have been some eye-rolling involved, but not a single person breathed a word of complaint. After all, her knowledge and accomplishments were unparalleled—and as her collection grew, each piece, alongside its attached documentation regarding where and how it had been obtained, turned into valuable data that had proven quite useful in their studies.

  “Just make sure not to take that thing over to the main office and run it through the EDS detector without permission, okay, Rokujo?”

  An EDS detector, or energy-dispersive spectroscopy detector, was a device that used X-rays to analyze chemical composition. However, since they were rather expensive, they couldn’t just install one in every single GIJ branch office. Anyone who wanted to use it needed to head back to the main office and submit an application—in theory.

  “Really? But filling out an application is such a hassle...”

  “Like I said, you can’t just run off willy-nilly and use their things whenever you like. They’ll get mad at you again.”

  “Come ooooon. The best part about EDS detectors is how they’re so quick and easy to use! Isn’t it kind of ridiculous to have to apply for it every single time?”

  “There’s the overall budget for the lab to consider...not to mention scheduled use time...”

  Komugi let out a sigh.

  “Well, I suppose there is a certain sense of mystery in not knowing what it actually is.” She held the object up to the light once more.

  If it was feldspar, the full details of its chemical composition were already known. And if it happened to be an unknown type of rock instead, generally it could be identified by analyzing it with the EDS detector. However, once the unknown became known, any mystique it held was as good as gone. Of course, making unknown things known was part of her job.

  “It sure is beautiful,” she cooed.

  “It is amazing how perfect a sphere it is,” Hatami admitted. “And with no imperfections...”

  Due to feldspar’s low hardness value and lamellar structure, one would expect feldspar that had been processed into a spherical shape to have flaws here and there. However, the sphere Komugi was looking at appeared to be completely flawless.

  “I know, right?”

  “Where was it cut?”

  “It wasn’t cut at all—it was generated exactly like this.”

  “What?!”

  In rare instances, dungeons had been known to produce gemstones that appeared to be precut. This must have been one of those—and the precision of the cut was beyond belief.

  Hatami couldn’t even begin to imagine what the gem actually might’ve been made of. All he had was the vague notion that dungeon-sourced gemstones might have some sort of unusual properties that didn’t exist in naturally formed rock.

  After losing himself in thought for a few moments, he snapped out of his brief reverie and urged Komugi to leave for the day.

  “That’s right, I needed to tell you. We’re closing up here, so please, wrap things up and head out as soon as you can, okay?”

  “Okaaay.”

  Casting Hatami a sideways glance as he put a few things away and started locking up, Komugi held up the shimmering object one last time, staring at it dreamily. Reluctant to leave it behind but having no choice, she gently placed it inside the drawer at her desk where she kept her personal belongings, then locked it tight.

  ***

  It thirsted; it hungered.

  Something had always surrounded it, filling it without it even being aware—but now, it could barely even feel that something.

  As it greedily gathered what faint ambient residue it could find, it grew frustrated with its inability to move. An impulse, smoldering inside it like a crimson ember, began coursing through its body.

  As it ran on raw instinct in its desperate state of hunger, its acute senses picked up the faintest scent of said something in the air nearby. Then, guided by that scent, it tried to reach out toward it, transforming itself into a long, thin, filament-like shape.

  At the end of its reach, it felt a hard object. To it, the object was more like a tiny puddle than a full-on oasis—yet it was refreshing nonetheless, like seeing a lone droplet of hope fall on a parched world.

  Quivering in joy for a brief moment, it soon became aware of many other similar hard objects nearby.

  Annotations

  Feldspar: This generally refers to rocks comprising aluminosilicates mixed with alkali metals or alkaline earth metals. Lately I’ve seen it referred to as “felspar” a lot, but since “feldspar” seems to be the more common spelling, that is what I’m using here. Potassium, sodium, and calcium make up the most common types, and various feldspars are made from combining these elements in varying proportions.

  Feldspar composition is typically represented as a triangle, with potassium, sodium, and calcium at each of the vertices, and their corresponding terminal feldspars being orthoclase, albite, and anorthite, respectively.

  Feldspars between potassium/orthoclase and sodium/albite are called alkali feldspars, which is the category moonstone belongs to. The glassy, highly transparent feldspar commonly known as sanidine is in this category as well.

  Next, feldspars between sodium/albite and calcium/anorthite are known as plagioclase. Labradorite belongs to this category.

  At this point, you may assume there would be something else between potassium/orthoclase and calcium/anorthite, but apparently no naturally occurring feldspars exist within that span.

  There are feldspars with other metals, such as barium or strontium, mixed in as well, but typical specimens can be thought of as combinations of the three aforementioned varieties.

  Also, while even gem-quality specimens of feldspar are not particularly valuable, that also means you can get larger pieces for lower prices. Perhaps one could say the joy of being able to easily obtain a specimen you like is one of its main selling points.

  Adularescence: This is another word for the Schiller effect.

  Iridescence: This is the name used for the effect seen when minerals shimmer in rainbow colors. If a gemstone has a rainbow shimmer, and you say something along the lines of “What lovely iridescence!” you’re typically using the word correctly.

  Labradorite: Feldspars that fall between sodium/albite and calcium/anorthite are known as plagioclase, and labradorite belongs to that category. When seen in labradorite specifically, the Schiller-like rainbow shimmering effect is sometimes called “labradorescence,” apparently. How puzzling.

  Note that “moonstone” is the name of a gemstone. While plagioclase feldspar is sometimes called moonstone as well, I differentiated things here by only referring to the alkali feldspar variety as moonstone, and the plagioclase feldspar varieties as labradorite and peristerite.

  EDS (Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy): In some cases this is referred to as “X-ray spectroscopy,” and can also be abbreviated as EDX, among a number of other acronyms.

  These devices perform qualitative and quantitative analyses on a substance by exposing it to X-rays and forcing it to emit its own fluorescent X-rays, then measuring the wavelength and intensity of those secondary rays.

  There are two main methods for X-ray fluorescence (XRF): WDS, or wavelength dispersive spectrometry, which is for the most part highly efficient, highly expensive, and highly difficult; and EDS, or energy dispersive spectrometry, which sacrifices some efficiency, but is cheap and easy to use. The latter appears to be the type more commonly employed in gemology.

  In layman’s terms, if you just think of it as a device that tells you about the chemical compositions of gemstones, you’re not exactly wrong.

  BEGIN

  “Huh?”

  The next day, Komugi noticed that several of the dungeon-sourced stones that had been scattered around her desk area were missing. At that point, though, she merely wondered whether someone had taken them away for research purposes.

  The morning after that, however, when she was the first one to arrive at Appraisal Room 2, she realized that a large chunk of her specimens was completely gone.

  “What the...?!”

  When he noticed Komugi raising her voice, then saw her grimacing and looking all around her desk area, Hatami, who had just arrived at work, called out to her.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Though he hadn’t been pleased with the idea, one of the responsibilities he had been tasked with was to proactively try and prevent her from causing yet another mess of some kind.

  “A bunch of the rocks I left here are missing.”

  “Oh? You didn’t take them home with you, then?”

  Hatami had noticed some of the rocks missing yesterday as well, but since Komugi hadn’t said anything, he’d just assumed she had done something with them.

  “I don’t have nearly enough room for all those at my place,” she replied, oddly proud.

  “I’m, uh, not sure that’s something you should be bragging about, Rokujo.”

  Putting on an exasperated smile at how little shame Komugi seemed to feel about openly using her workplace as a storage space, Hatami glanced at her heavily picked-over collection. It looked like a smile that was missing some teeth. He crossed his arms.

  “Isn’t it kind of an odd assortment for someone to have run off with?”

  “Odd? How?”

  “Well, the monetary values of the missing rocks are all over the place, aren’t they?”

  Upon hearing that, Komugi considered their value for the first time ever. To her, they were all the same—part of her lovely little collection of rocks. She had never paid any mind to whatever monetary value they held to the general public.

  For that matter, the dungeon-sourced pieces in her collection didn’t really have much value in the typical sense—which was only natural, considering their provenance.

  “You’re right,” she murmured.

  Judging by which stones were missing, she couldn’t imagine whoever took them had been looking to make a profit—the values were all over the spectrum. And anyone who worked with her would’ve undoubtedly had the ability to cherry-pick the most valuable targets with ease.

  “Look, instead of taking the raw Colombian emerald I was using for comparison data, they took the peridotite.”

  Gem-quality olivine contained within peridotite was sold on the market as peridot, but the peridotite she’d had was nowhere near gem quality—it was more or less just a plain old greenish rock. Even if some eccentric collector wanted to buy it, it could probably only fetch a few hundred yen at best. No doubt the examination fee alone had been more than the piece was worth, so the original owner had paid for it in kind.

  “Hmmm...” Hatami had no idea who would’ve taken them, or for what purpose.

  What would anyone have done with that many rocks in the first place? If the culprit was someone who worked there, the danger of getting fired would’ve far outweighed any potential benefits. And it wasn’t as if any of the employees loved rocks so much that they would have risked their entire job to—

  Before he could finish, he glanced over at Komugi, who tilted her head in confusion. Okay, maybe there’s one employee like that, he thought.

  “Oh, I know! Someone must have fallen in love with these cuties at first sight, and decided to kidnap—”

  “Rokujo, you’re the only one here who’d ever consider that.”

  “Really?!”

  Hatami chuckled a bit when Komugi puffed out her cheeks as if she had taken great offense, but he quickly reminded himself that a theft had occurred.