What do I do. What do I do. What do I do.
The personal orb. The shocking fact I learned through the PO.
Should I tell everyone about this?
"But... they're not here anymore, are they."
This place is deserted.
There might not be any need to go out of my way to tell them.
But still, this dungeon city is something else.
No wait, dungeons are always something else.
"This PO... what should I do with it?"
Take it with me, no. I'll leave it as is. I'll put it back on the display stand properly.
Then I sat down in a nearby chair and took out the crescent vessel and my favorite cup.
This cup is the easy-to-wash cup I got from the witch.
It's a simple white cup, but it's really easy to use and I love it.
I pour tea from the crescent vessel into the cup.
Today's tea is a matcha imitation.
I made it by finely grinding dried tea leaves into powder and blending them with the crescent vessel.
"...Phew."
Tea is nice. It calms the mind.
I feel a slow, relaxed atmosphere settle in.
While I was relaxing like that, everyone who'd gone to the upper floors came back.
"There were so many different things, honestly my head's about to burst."
"For real."
"Um, um, it was so much fun!"
Haiyan wore a deflated expression, and Bid looked tired.
Juicy was grinning from ear to ear. Three people, three completely different moods.
"Wof. How was it on your end?"
Haiyan asked.
"Huh? Well, um... nothing really special over here."
"Huh? I see."
"Wof! What are we doing next?"
"Let me think. Unless there's anything else, I figured we'd head back to base. Bid, did you have anything planned?"
"I'm beat. I'm for heading back."
Well, she looks completely drained, so that much is obvious.
"I wanna head back too."
Haiyan muttered under his breath.
"What about you, Juicy?"
I called out to her—the only one still full of energy.
"Um, um, I think I should do the same."
"Then let's head back."
We left the home center behind.
On the way back, we ran into a black spherical doll, fought it, and returned to base.
Agaro and the others still hadn't come back.
Bitt and Juicy went to take a bath, and Hayan and I started cooking.
Since Bitt and Juicy had requested meat, I figured I'd make some kind of meat dish.
I pulled out a chunk of dried meat from my pouch.
I sliced it thick with my knife.
"Wof. Listen up."
"What is it?"
After cutting the slices thick, I placed them in the frying pan.
It had seasoning and fat already, so I could just cook it as-is.
"You. What were you doing in that room full of light orbs?"
"What do you mean? I was investigating."
I heated up the pan and set it down.
Not using fire felt a little strange.
"What are you hiding?"
"............"
Hayan cut straight to the point.
"You're a bad liar."
"Am I?"
"I feel guilty about lying."
"Well, that's pretty normal, isn't it?"
"I don't, much."
Hayan said it matter-of-factly.
"Well, that's its own kind of problem."
"For instance, someone like Juicy wouldn't be the type who can lie."
"That's true enough."
"Bid can lie."
"I don't really want to agree, but yeah."
The frying pan was heating up and the dried meat was clattering.
"Pakira's no good at it."
"Yeah, I can see that."
"Lupinus probably can too."
"That too."
"Riv's... I can't really tell."
"Well... yeah."
"As for Agaro, what's the word. Slippery."
"What's that supposed to mean."
I understood what he was getting at.
Incidentally, the pink sphere was naturally excluded from the list.
"Anyway, you're terrible at lying."
"Well, it's not like I'm trying all that hard to hide it."
I glanced at how the jerky was coming along and started talking.
Explaining the PO system by comparing it to a PC was a bit of a struggle.
Databases, consoles — stuff like that in Haiyarn's lab.
They were basically PCs, but Haiyarn had no idea.
"Hmm. I see."
"So what do you think?"
"Nothing to think about — we haven't actually encountered them. The city is empty. They're not there."
"Yeah, you're right..."
"From what you're describing, are they something like the Anstanshiru bunch?"
"Yeah, now that you put it that way, that is closer."
"I would have liked to see that footage myself."
"I was a little torn about bringing it, but..."
"Actually, I was thinking of bringing something too... but it felt like I was stealing, so I gave up."
Oh, so Haiyarn had grown as a person too.
The jerky had turned a nice fox-brown, so I pulled it out and set it on a plate.
"By the way, what's up with Bido? He looked really worn out."
"That. Apparently there were things he couldn't understand at all, displayed all neat and tidy, and there were so many of them he got scared."
"Fear of the unknown?"
"Figures."
Yeah, I can sympathize with that.
"Then again, how come Juushii was so energetic?"
"Apparently it was really spacious, so he had fun running around everywhere."
"Ah, makes sense."
I was convinced.
Convinced beyond a reasonable doubt.
"Next time I'll bring Riv along."
"Yeah. I'd feel bad having her buy stuff for me again though."
"Can't be helped."
Well, true.
"...The train group sure is slow."
"But with that lineup, there's nothing to worry about."
"I guess that's true."
While we were chatting like that, I heard the sound of the front door on the first floor opening.
They're back? I headed downstairs and found Agaro, Riv, and Lupinus, and—huh?
"Welcome back. Where's Pakira?"
Pakira was the only one missing.
What happened? Then Agaro bowed his head to me.
"Sorry, Wof. Pakira got snatched."
"Huh?"
Snatched?
What?