Chapter 96 – Enlightenment Stream! Stay away from the dungeon for a while!

“Heу there! Коnсhа~! It’s Sрiiiсe! Tоday’s strеаm is all аbоut kеерing evеryоne safе!”

※ ‘Коnсha~!’ ‘Kоn-Spа~!’ ‘For safetу?’

“Yеah, yeah. Fоr sаfety. Right now, Spicе is just wаlking down the street, but therе’s а small Dungeоn that’s роррed up nearbу. Thing is, with the Dun-mе uрdаtes and thе Dungеоn Cleаring apрlication prосedures gеtting аll cоmplicаted, it’s becоme rеаlly hard to actuаlly stаrt сlеaring thеm.”

It’s a prеttу tоugh situation.

А lot оf thе реоplе whо bеcоmе Streamers are the type who can’t really handle being regular working adults.

If you ask whether those kinds of people can properly follow the complicated procedures set by the government offices to apply for Dungeon Clearing… it’s doubtful.

Everyone’s saying stuff like, “I’m fine with just chatting and doing Game Streams for a while,” or “The Labyrinth Ministry will probably reset it once it hits its limit anyway,” and they’ve stopped going to Dungeons.

This is also becoming a cause for the recent increase in Dungeon Disasters, the Stampedes.

“The Labyrinth Ministry is underestimating how lazy Streamers can be. Sure, Streamers from Major Corporations probably have people who can handle it properly, and they have Mr. Manager with them for support. But the vast majority of the world are Independent Streamers and Small Agencies! It’s these folks who’ve been diligently taking out the small Dungeons that kept the world running… But if they can’t even do this application anymore…”

Streamers with high “social misfit” power are all taking a break from Dungeon Clearing.

But Dungeons won’t wait.

They keep getting more active, and when the monsters multiply too much, they breach and flood into the city.

Clearing them is absolutely necessary, but right now, there’s a severe shortage of manpower.

“So! Today, Spice is going to teach you how to spot and avoid the small Dungeons that are popping up!”

※ ‘Okay!’ ‘Looking forward to it!’ ‘It’s hard to tell the small Dungeons apart, huh.’ ‘Things are getting rough, huh.’

As the comments say, a newly spawned Dungeon is indistinguishable from a normal vacant storefront or empty house.

They look exactly the same.

Even if you look inside from the outside, you just see an empty interior… nothing seems different.

Or so it seems.

Actually, it’s a little different.

“Everyone~, there’s a small Dungeon that’s spawned right here. Spice, you see, properly went through that annoying procedure and took on the job to clear this place~”

If you challenge a Dungeon without taking on a job like this, if something goes wrong, you won’t get any help.

With an official A-Phone, there’s a system that lets your Avatar escape outside if it gets destroyed, but…

With a Civilian A-Phone, it’s game over.

“Spice is a former old man, a former working adult, so I’m used to these kinds of procedures.”

※ ‘Amazing~’ ‘He sometimes shows off that old man power.’ ‘A little girl with high administrative skills is good. I want her at my company (seriously).’

“Spice did practical work too, so just admin stuff is a bit… Okay~, we’re in front of the Dungeon! Look, look. Here, it’s a multi-tenant building with a void from the first to third floor and a spiral staircase exposed on the outside. The walls are all glass, so the second floor just looks like a vacant storefront, right~?”

On the wall, a Talisman that was probably put up by a former tenant is stuck, half-torn.

It probably doesn’t have any power left.

“If you look inside through the glass door… There’s a built-in bar counter, probably left to make it easy for the next tenant. The fixed chairs are broken or toppled over… Do you understand now?”

※ ‘No idea.’ ‘Completely lost.’ ‘What’s weird about it?’ Rump: ‘…There shouldn’t be anyone inside, so why is that chair on the floor swaying back and forth?’

“Correct~! There’s no power working inside, and of course, no electricity! And there’s no reason for a broken fixed chair to move… But that chair on the floor is swaying back and forth, isn’t it~? This means some kind of force is continuously acting on the easily movable objects inside. They used to call it a poltergeist phenomenon, but it was actually the Dungeonization Phenomenon~”

※ Maruchou: ‘They say Dungeonization is an Otherworldly Transformation Phenomenon. I see, because the Otherworld is overlapping with ours, unstable things are more easily affected and move.’ ‘So that’s it!’ ‘Whoa~’ ‘So when you see a vacant property, first check if anything’s moving inside?’ ‘Isn’t that scary?’ ‘Normally you wouldn’t go into empty houses, right?’

“Yeah, yeah, normally you wouldn’t go in! But there are people who do go in~! And those people sometimes become victims, so this is a warning! Please teach at least how to spot them to any impulsive people nearby who might do something reckless! If you die in a Dungeon, you get reused as-is and become a Zombie or something! If you’re defeated, you vanish, and your body can’t be recovered!”

※ ‘Ahee~’ ‘Gyee~’ ‘That’s harsh.’ ‘So maybe those funerals we sometimes see with empty coffins…’ ‘So that’s it!’

You can harvest Dungeon Cores from Dungeons, which is a dangerous but essential job for gathering resources to run modern society.

But still, for ordinary people, it’s a place where you can’t do anything, a very dangerous place!

“Then there’s the door. Normally, the lock would be closed, or it’d be warped and wouldn’t open. But Dungeons are basically structured to lure people in… Compared to when it was an empty house or vacant storefront, it’s become incredibly easy to enter! The lock is broken and opens easily like this.”

The door opened easily.

And then, inside, instead of a vacant storefront, there was a Dungeon with toppled chairs, broken flooring, and a built-in bar counter stretching on endlessly.

※ ‘Whoa!’ ‘The door opened with no resistance!’ ‘You’d totally go in, right?’

“And when you enter the Dungeon~”

Spice took a step forward into the Dungeon.

Looking back, the door was closing on its own.

And without a sound, too.

The moment the door closed completely, BAM! A loud sound echoed.

“It’s like this, designed to stir up fear! And then, even if you try to open the door from this side… See, it won’t open anymore! It’s set up not to let prey escape once they’re in~. So if an ordinary person enters a Dungeon… that’s basically the end! Unless you have an A-Phone, you won’t get any signal! You can only hope and pray that a Streamer who happened to take on this Sponsored Deal comes to rescue you!”

※ ‘Dungeons are this scary…’ ‘Because Streamers clear them so casually, I thought they were nothing.’ ‘Luring people in and swallowing victims, it’s like a living thing.’ Maruchou: ‘I’ve heard Dungeons are living things. They feed on victims to fatten their Dungeon Core.’ Prime Sirloin: ‘Do the victims get thinner? I wish they’d take a bit of my husband’s meat…’

Yeah, yeah, I think everyone understands how dangerous Dungeons are!

If we don’t crush these things aggressively, it’s definitely going to be bad.

The Labyrinth Ministry, who made taking on these jobs so difficult, can only be called idiots.

No wonder disasters are happening all over the country.

“So, let’s clear this quickly! Hiyah! Fireballs to blow up every monster that comes out!! Burn, burn~!!”

※ ‘Right after lecturing about Dungeon terror, he clears it so smoothly!!’ ‘This sense of entertainment is what causes misunderstandings lol’ ‘Gooo Spice!!’

Today’s educational stream was a huge hit!

Later, the Clip Video was uploaded as a horror genre video for some reason, leaving Spice scratching his head…!