Chapter 62
There was once a fearsome politician whose name echoed across the land.
His name was Tsuruo Hasegawa.
Today, he is the 9th among A-Class explorers.
Tsuruo Hasegawa was a strapping young man blessed with stamina.
After playing rugby through high school and college, he gained a strong mind and body and followed in his father's footsteps into politics.
It seemed like everything would go smoothly.
But nothing went smoothly at all.
This man was a little... different.
The manifesto he presented was "Unyielding Justice."
He vowed to change Japan's political world, which had grown complacent with corruption and stagnation.
Specifically, it was an absurd manifesto pledging to never yield to corruption, to smash all injustice with his fists, and to restore justice through violence.
"You keep holding these useless sessions just to waste tax money! Don't you dare make a mockery of the National Diet!"
He followed through. Believing that keeping one's word was the most sincere act, he punched hesitation first and began his rebellion against bad governance.
He went on to punch one shady politician after another. Before long, Tsuruo Hasegawa was being called the 'Justice Representative' by the media.
Many who were punched by Tsuruo Hasegawa were forced into retirement, and the wrongdoers fled the political world like cowards.
But justice made too many enemies.
Everyone feared him. The villains schemed shrewdly, and eventually Tsuruo Hasegawa was cut off from any path as a politician.
After leaving politics, he spent time traveling and studying across Europe.
As he continued to learn, Tsuruo Hasegawa saw the world.
He gained much knowledge and many experiences.
And then, he arrived at a single truth.
That violence is the cure for all ills.
That violence is the one and only method for solving everything.
It was in the summer of his thirty-fifth year, ablaze with dangerous ideology, that a turning point came.
The Dungeon Foundation reached out to him: "Would you like to become an explorer?"
He immediately returned to Japan, began his career as an explorer, and poured all his burning passion into Dungeon Life.
The fame of the 'Justice Representative' quickly spread throughout Japan's dungeon circles, and together with his notorious past, he rose to the top as the highest-ranking explorer in both name and reality.
Three months ago, the Gunma Class 3 dungeon was a rare large-scale dungeon, and famous explorers from all over Japan gathered. There were even a few who came from overseas.
Naturally, Tsuruo Hasegawa deployed to Gunma as well.
Whenever he traveled for assignments, he always left the house early in the morning. Since he drove from his home in Yokohama, he'd naturally developed a habit of avoiding traffic.
At dawn, before the sun rose, he would slip into his suit, and have his wife tie his tie.
Even if his battlefield had shifted from politics to the labyrinth, that routine never changed.
Tsuruo Hasegawa carried a sense of guilt toward his wife, who had been his companion since their student days.
He had promised to show her a grand dream and took her away from a prestigious family, only to have that dream fall apart — then wandered foreign lands under the guise of studying abroad, leaving her neglected for years.
"Tsuruo-san, are you really going?"
Whenever Tsuruo Hasegawa was about to take on a major dungeon, his wife always asked him this.
The Justice Representative would always reply, "Yeah!"
"You don't have to push yourself anymore."
"I'm not pushing myself. I live to fulfill a great cause. A life without purpose has no value."
"I see. Well then, please come back safely once again."
"Yeah."
Tsuruo Hasegawa was a diligent explorer who took on even small Class 1 dungeons seriously. That's why he was constantly busy, active all across Japan.
As soon as the Dungeon Boss of the Gunma Class 3 dungeon was defeated, he returned home.
His high school-aged son and daughter acted aloof, but deep down they respected their great father.
Even after the new year began, Tsuruo Hasegawa continued his busy Dungeon Life.
Then, one day, a shockwave hit Japan's dungeon community.
"A Class 4 dungeon? How many years has it been?"
"They say it's been twenty years."
Once again, Tsuruo Hasegawa donned his suit and tied his tie. No matter when or where, this was his battle dress.
"Tsuruo-san, are you really going again?"
"Yeah."
The usual conversation took place, and his wife placed a blazing red brooch on his chest.
The passionate red was a perfect match for the fighting spirit that burned within Tsuruo Hasegawa since his student days.
"Ouch."
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I think the brooch's clasp poked me a little."
A crimson bead of blood on her pale fingertip.
She forced a smile on her face.
But Tsuruo Hasegawa's wife couldn't help but feel an ominous chill from the color of that blood.
"Please come back safely again this time."
"Yeah."
And so, Tsuruo Hasegawa headed to the Chiba Class 4 dungeon.
He checked in at the hotel lobby. Naturally, the highest-ranking explorer gets the suite.
While waiting at the front desk for a while, another explorer approached the adjacent counter. A very young man.
"Hm, this young man is..."
A young man wearing jet-black sunglasses, holding a duralumin case in his left hand, and clad in a dark brown coat.
He immediately recognized him as the young man he saw at the Gunma Class 3 dungeon.
He remembered him well because of his youth.
"Hm? What is it?"
"We met at the Gunma dungeon before, remember?"
The young man put a hand to his chin and muttered, "Did we...?" with a puzzled look above his head.
"Come on, you talked to me when you were showing off the scar on your forehead."
"Ah, Barry Botter... Thanks for that time... (I didn't want to remember it)"
"You're incredibly diligent for someone so young. Already A-rank, huh? You must have real talent."
"Thanks. But I'm reaching my limit. It's hard to level up now, and the skim-off is accelerating too, haha."
"Skim-off? You're just letting them get away with that misconduct? That's unacceptable. I'll teach you how to solve injustice."
"There's a way?"
"Yeah. Violence. Punch it out."
"...(I shouldn't get too involved with this guy.)"
The young man gave a wry smile and quickly escaped to the elevator from the front desk.
Tsuruo Hasegawa followed, trying to go with him.
Realizing a dangerous person was following, the young man switched from the elevator to the stairs and firmly cut him off with "Well then, I'll be going this way," successfully distancing himself.
As soon as the dungeon's preliminary survey was completed, Tsuruo Hasegawa launched into the conquest.
He tackled it day after day as part of the frontline group.
(It's only been a few days since the dungeon conquest began, yet we've already reached the 19th floor. The frontline really is solid. Fifty B-ranks, twenty A-ranks, and the S-rank 'Mister' and 'Dandy'. ...Not only overwhelming in numbers, but the members are exceptional.)
Dungeons appear constantly all over the country.
None of them can be left alone, so the Dungeon Foundation and explorers must always deal with them.
Because of that, a large amount of manpower rarely gathers in a single dungeon—at most, you'll get one or two A-ranks. So having this much power in one place is extremely rare.
(That's a Class 4 dungeon for you. But ironically, its scale draws in so many elites that it ends up accelerating the conquest pace.)
The elite units, including the Justice Representative who had always supported the frontline by diving in first, continued to push forward from the supply base.
But by the fifth day, even the faces of many explorers were showing signs of fatigue. As fatigue builds up, HP and MP no longer recover properly, and skills and various status effects start receiving bad bonuses.
This bad bonus isn't rare—it's said that most explorers fall into this state if they challenge a dungeon without sleeping.
However, high-ranking explorers can push themselves harder, so diving for several days isn't impossible. Still, the toll definitely accumulates.
The Justice Representative volunteered to take on the role of escorting those who had reached their limits safely back to the surface.
With one A-rank explorer and eight B-rank explorers, he returned from the 19th floor via the 15th-floor supply base to the surface.
They weren't pushing their stamina to the absolute limit—this was a temporary return with some margin. So there was no reason for concern, and they retreated in good spirits, daydreaming about what to eat once they reached the surface.
That's how it should have gone.
But it happened during that return trip.
That's when they encountered the "Wandering Boss."