Going to help her wouldn’t be a big deal if she were in a dungeon, but a third party heading into a private corporation’s office probably isn’t the best idea in the world. And us getting roped into some kind of pest extermination thing at a GIJ branch office is pretty weird in itself.

  “There’s— There’s blood!”

  “Blood?”

  Apparently she had seen some red liquid start oozing out from inside the desk.

  Did some carnivorous animal start eating a rat or something? I can’t imagine that would produce enough blood to leak out of a desk drawer, though.

  “Um, are you sure you’re all right? If nobody else is there, maybe you should hurry out and get to a safe place... Rokujo? Rokujo?!”

  She had suddenly screamed while I was in the middle of talking, and I started calling her name out in a panic. However, the call cut off there, and redialing only took me to her voicemail.

  “What the...?”

  As I continued trying to call back a few more times, Miyoshi finally stepped off the stairs and approached me.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Well, Rokujo was apparently running into some kind of strange phenomenon at the GIJ branch office...”

  It was a mistake to tell Miyoshi that she had suddenly screamed and hung up, though. With a gleam in her eyes, Miyoshi curled her hand into a tight fist.

  “She’s in trouble, Kei! Let’s head out there right now and rescue her!”

  “Huh...?” Sure, maybe something happened, but this is where normal people would get the police involved.

  “You know as well as I do the police are there to respond after something has already happened. If they mobilized for every report of a phone call not going through, all the officers in the world wouldn’t be enough.”

  “I mean, she did scream...” I pointed out.

  “If she really is in trouble, she’ll be doomed if she has to wait for the police.”

  “Guh...” I forgot how much Miyoshi loves this sort of thing...

  “One of our employees is in trouble! Of course we’ve got to go save her!”

  “Um, Mishiro may technically be an employee, but Rokujo isn’t.”

  “Well, leaving a customer in the lurch is even more rude!”

  I honestly can’t see how this is supposed to be work-related... And if it is, who exactly is gonna foot the bill?

  I tried to think up various justifications to get her to stop, but once Miyoshi got like that, she was a runaway locomotive—nobody could stop her. No way, no how.

  I grimaced and looked up at the clock.

  “So are we going right now?” A fair amount of time had passed—it was already after midnight.

  “Why not? It’s not every day we get a chance to do a little ghost busting!”

  “Ghost busting is out of season. You realize it’s the middle of winter, right?”

  Dungeons might’ve had their resident ghosts, but there was no way real ghosts existed in modern-day Japan. They were illusions created in the minds of frightened people—definitely just figments of our overactive imaginations.

  “I’ll be ready in a jiffy!”

  With that, Miyoshi glanced around her desk and started tossing whatever she thought we might need into Storage.

  ***

  “It may just be a branch office, but the GIJ deals with gemstones, doesn’t it? I seriously doubt they’re just gonna let in a couple of random strangers.”

  “We’ll never know unless we give it a shot!”

  “And what shot do you think we actually have?”

  “Does that mean you’re volunteering to Spider-Man your way into the building?”

  “Let’s just hope our shot doesn’t turn into shots fired,” I replied with a scowl.

  Our destination was a twelve-story building with rather tight-looking security located fairly close to Yoyogi Dungeon. According to the building directory, the GIJ branch office was on the eighth floor.

  When we approached the building’s entrance, unsurprisingly we were stopped by security.

  “Um, we have business with the GIJ...”

  “Oh yeah, the exterminators, right? Must be rough, having to come out here so late.”

  “Huh?”

  “Did I mistake you for someone else? Could I see your ID?”

  “U-Um, sure...”

  Kei, we should use our WDA licenses to pass ourselves off as both explorers and exterminators! Miyoshi suggested via telepathy.

  Are you kidding me...? I responded.

  I pretended to fish around in my pocket and pulled my WDA card out of Vault, presenting it to the guard.

  “Wait, you’re explorers? Don’t tell me there’s some kind of monster...”

  “Oh, no, no. Take a look here—they wouldn’t send out a G-rank like me to handle a job like that.”

  Hearing that and glancing at my card again, the security guard nodded in evident relief.

  “Sending out explorers to exterminate rats, huh... Anyway, they’re expecting you. Here you go.” He handed me what seemed to be a lanyard-style key card, which would no doubt provide limited access to certain, specific areas. Then, he pointed us to the elevator in the back. “Just take that elevator up to the eighth floor.”

  We thanked him and made our way over to the elevator. It opened as soon as we pressed the up arrow.

  “I’ve never been in this building before. It’s bigger than I realized.”

  “It sounds like the GIJ is renting out the entire eighth floor,” Miyoshi stated as she pressed the button for the eighth floor, which was the only one that worked.

  “Are there really that many dungeon-produced minerals out there?”

  The rent for such a large space must’ve been pretty hefty. It was possible they were using it for some other means of making revenue, but if all they did was appraisals, I couldn’t imagine they had enough business to warrant using the entire floor.

  “I get the feeling this may be a JDA building,” Miyoshi said.

  “Really?”

  “I mean, all the companies in the building are dungeon-related.”

  The building directory outside had revealed that, apparently. If that were the case, then it might’ve been a bad idea, in terms of security, to allow more than one business to operate on the same floor, given the value of what the GIJ handled.

  “So you don’t think they’re paying that much?”

  “Probably not.”

  The elevator slowed down and jerked to a stop. We had reached the eighth floor. The doors slid open before us with a low hiss.

  “Uh...”

  Based on what we could tell from the elevator lights, we had arrived at what appeared to be a small, closed-off lobby area. At the front of it was a key card access door. That made perfect sense, but there was a small problem.

  “Why is it pitch-black in here?”

  Once the elevator door had closed behind us, we were in nearly complete darkness. All we could see was a glowing number eight hovering in midair by the elevator. Apparently we were on the correct floor, at least.

  “Normally you’d think they’d at least leave some emergency lights on,” Miyoshi murmured.

  We saw no trace of the “EXIT” sign denoting the emergency exit, nor the smaller guide lights scattered about that were supposed to lead people to it. From our location behind the partition, we couldn’t even see out the windows. The only light source other than the elevator number was a tiny white LED on a machine in front of us.

  “Is it possible for emergency lights to just go out like that?” I mused.

  “Sure, if the ballast fails, or the breaker connected to them gets tripped...”

  “The timing seems awfully convenient.”

  “It is kind of like a horror movie, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t even start. And again, it’s out of season for horror.”

  Struck by a sudden concern for Rokujo, I scanned the area around us.

  “Another possible explanation is that it’s already been at least thirty minutes since they first turned on.”

  Guide lights were mandated by the Fire Service Act, and emergency lights were mandated by the Building Standards Act. For a building the size of the one we were in, the former were required to stay illuminated for at least twenty minutes, and the latter for at least thirty, supposedly. However, even once that time had elapsed, they didn’t tend to just blink out instantly—they usually dimmed gradually.

  We quietly called out to Rokujo, but heard no responses from any direction.

  “What about her cell phone?” I asked.

  “It rings a couple of times, then goes straight to voicemail,” Miyoshi replied.

  Unfortunately, we couldn’t hear the sound of a phone ringing coming from anywhere while we were trying to call. I strained to listen just in case I could hear the sound of it vibrating, but to no avail. Giving up on calling, Miyoshi put her phone away.

  “This is the point where most people would start wanting to hightail it out of here, right Kei?” she said with an amused grin.

  I’d actually prefer not to end up locked into some terrifying fun-house ride of doom. If we just turn around right now and press the down arrow next to the elevator door, we can go right back to our normal lives. It’s not like the moment the elevator door opens, some horrible creature inside will grab us and spirit us away, or the door will just refuse to open at all...right?

  “I guess so. But it’s always possible Rokujo is actually in trouble... I’d rather not hear about someone finding her cold, dead body tomorrow morning, y’know.”

  “See, now it’s sounding more like a job for the police.”

  “Nothing has changed since before we came out here, though,” I pointed out. “There’s still not a shred of evidence that anything has even happened. What would we call them for this time? The office being empty in the middle of the night?”

  “It may as well be a prank call.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned on the flashlight app. I was lucky enough to have the Night Vision skill, but Miyoshi was going to need a light source.

  “At any rate, we need to find out what’s going on here,” I stated.

  “That sounds exactly like something the next victim would say,” Miyoshi replied with a concerned smile, then pulled a large flashlight out of Storage and switched it on.

  Doing my best to ignore her, I continued my thought.

  “I can think of at least one possible explanation, so be careful.”

  “And what might that be?”

  I brought my face right up next to hers, pointing at the flashlight she had just “pulled out.”

  “That the JDA is conspiring with the GIJ to figure out exactly what we’re capable of,” I whispered.

  “Oh, don’t be silly.”

  Rokujo had been more or less forced on us by the Dungeon Management Section—and the conditions surrounding that certainly could’ve been construed as some kind of probe of our abilities. Still, while that whole deal might have been suspicious in its own right, manufacturing a situation like this felt far too complicated.

  “I doubt it too. Just throwing it out there.”

  Waving my light back and forth across the area, I found something that looked like a light switch and tried pressing it, but nothing happened. Giving Miyoshi a slight shrug, I approached the door in front and swiped my card key in front of the reader. As soon as I did, the LED turned green, accompanied by a faint electronic beep, and the lock opened with a strangely loud clack.

  “I guess key cards are still usable, even though the locks seem like they’d run on electricity,” I murmured.

  “They’re probably battery-operated—the type that functions stand-alone.”

  “Well, something had to go right for us, huh?”

  If it had been a motorized lock or an electric lock that required power to unlock, it would’ve been stuck in the locked position when the power went out, and we probably wouldn’t even have been able to get in.

  “Let’s just hope and pray it doesn’t lead us right into something going teeeeerribly wrooooong!”

  “Can you not?” I grumbled.

  “All right, Kei, it’s not much, but I’d like you to have this.” With that, Miyoshi handed me the titanium wok I had used on our first ever dungeon dive.

  Chuckling lightly, I swung the pan back and forth a few times like it was a tennis racket, then opened the door.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked.

  “It may be a pretty big area, but it’s still just a single floor of a business building. Let’s just check out every last place we can get into. Searching every nook and cranny is a gameplay basic!”

  I gave her a stern look.

  “You do realize this isn’t a game, right? Shouldn’t we start by checking the places Rokujo is most likely to be?” This wasn’t a situation where we had to search every room in order to find another key to progress further.

  “It’s not like it’ll take that much longer to just cover everything!”

  The area behind the door was a lobby-type space as well. As best I could tell, the portion of the lobby next to the elevator had been split off by the partition that divided the area. There was a vending machine up against the wall, but it had no power.

  To our left was what appeared to be a conference room, and to our right—

  “Now there’s a potential hot spot,” Miyoshi declared. Her light was shining up at a restroom sign.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s always someone, or something, lurking in the restroom, right?”

  “Cut it out already. This is serious.”

  I started heading left, toward the conference room.

  “What? But what if Komugi called because she accidentally forgot to put down the toilet seat, then sat down and got her butt stuck in the toilet?”

  “That’s quite an overactive imagination you’ve got,” I grumbled. “If that were the case, though, she definitely wouldn’t have called me. She would’ve reached out to someone familiar, like a boyfriend, or failing that, another woman, like you.”

  Ignoring Miyoshi, who started going on about there being some particular fetish about that, I opened the conference room door and went inside.

  “You’re being awfully careless,” Miyoshi chided, carefully following behind me as she lit the way with her flashlight. “If there had been a monster in here, it could’ve easily had you for dinner already.”

  “I’m telling you, there aren’t any monsters in here.”

  Not feeling as though we were in any particular danger, I took a quick glance across every shadowy corner, but unsurprisingly, found nothing. I would’ve been concerned had the place been dungeonized somehow, but if the JDA had detected any sort of associated dungeon tremor, they would’ve already been swarming all over the place.

  “There could still be a person carrying a deadly weapon,” Miyoshi pointed out.

  “Hmm...”

  There was no denying Rokujo had called me for help. And with the call ending how it had, and us coming out here but not being able to find her, it was probably safe to assume something had actually happened. If she had gone outside, the security guard probably would’ve told us.

  At that point, I raised my stats to levels appropriate for dungeon use. That way I probably wouldn’t get one-shotted unless something really extreme happened. If I managed to stay alive, potions and Super Recovery could take care of the rest. Probably.

  “Okay, restroom time?”

  “Yeah, yeah...” Putting on a strained half smile at Miyoshi and her toilet agenda, I started heading toward the restroom, but froze in my tracks in front of the entrance. “Wait. Waitwaitwait.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “C’mon, it doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out. I can’t go in there!” I gestured pointedly at the icon on the restroom door: a stick figure in a pink skirt.

  “Nobody’s inside, though!”

  “Weren’t you the one who was worried we’d find Rokujo in there with her butt stuck in the toilet?”

  I tried flipping the switch at the entrance on and off a few times, but no lights came on.

  “Well, I suppose this one’s up to me, then. I’ll be right back!”

  “Be careful.”

  “Well, like you said, there aren’t any monsters!”

  “And like you said, there might be a bloodthirsty killer,” I reminded her.

  Miyoshi headed into the restroom, and I heard what sounded like her opening the door to a stall. On the outside, it remained as dark and quiet as ever. It reminded me a bit of the inside of a dungeon, which in turn reminded me of my skills.

  “Hey, I have Life Detection!”

  Normally the Life Detection skill activated automatically immediately upon descending into a dungeon. That being said, it was still usable outside of dungeons. However, its range was more narrow and its potency lower. Also, it wasn’t very practical or useful when there were tons and tons of people around, so it normally just turned off automatically upon leaving a dungeon. Of additional note is that its decline in range and potency differed depending on where exactly it was used.

  “Did you say something?” Miyoshi said, poking her head back out at my murmured exclamation.

  “Oh, I was just thinking, we don’t need to bother running around aimlessly like this. We can just search for her with Life Detection.”

  “You’re really bringing that up right now, Kei?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve been using it since we first got here, and it hasn’t given me any solid signals.”

  “For real?” I focused as hard as I could to locate anything. With skills that didn’t have any clear on/off switch, sometimes it was difficult to tell whether failing to pick up a signal meant that there was actually nothing there, or that the skill just hadn’t been activated. “Actually, I think I’m picking up something further up ahead...”

  “I didn’t notice anything at all. Maybe it’s because you have double Life Detection?”

  “Maybe. You’re right, though; it does feel like the reception gets pretty rough in some places here in the outside world...”

  “Seems highly likely it has something to do with the density of D-Factors, doesn’t it?”