The music box treasure chest found in the dungeon. After discussing it with everyone, we decided to leave it behind and return because it was bulky.
Not everything from the dungeon should be taken home. Humans have limits to what they can carry.
A few days later, Kōya’s new weapon was finished, and he was able to return to streaming.
“Alright, now I can join the stream again!”
Later, at my house, the members of Shadow Stars were gathered, and Kōya was proudly showing off his new sword to everyone.
Shiba-san and Daigo-san were watching his actions with warm eyes. I had already been shown the sword before they arrived, so instead of watching, I was gathering information on my laptop.
Information gathering is a necessary skill for dungeon streamers. For independent dungeon streamers, they have to do everything themselves. But as an office, I want to support with information collection.
“Hmm? What is this…! Ikezawa -san, take a look at this!”
I showed Ikezawa -san the webpage on my computer. It was a bounty site for dungeon streamers, where items obtained in dungeons had bounties attached to them.
“Uhh… this is… Ah!”
Ikezawa -san was also surprised. He never expected something like this to happen. If he had predicted it, he would have taken different actions.
“The music box we found in the dungeon! It has a bounty of 4 million yen!”
“What?!”
Shiba-san and Daigo-san, who had been ignoring Kōya, were now fixated on the screen.
The music box found in the treasure chest was a counterfeit. The bounty site page had an archive of the Shadow Stars stream linked.
It seemed like it was just a music box that played sound, and it didn’t seem valuable, but who would’ve thought it would be worth so much?
“Ugh… Should’ve taken it with us. I made the wrong decision.”
Daigo-san was deeply regretful. But the decision not to take it was something we all agreed on, so it wasn’t Daigo-san’s fault.
“It’s no use regretting the past. Let’s try to go back and recover that music box. We should dive back into the dungeon.”
Shiba-san, drawn by the 4 million yen bounty, immediately wanted to act. Kōya, having sheathed his sword, joined the conversation.
“But if it has a bounty on it, it might have already been collected.”
“Yeah, but there might still be time. Our rivals might be diving into that dungeon right now.”
Shiba-san, seeing the large sum of money at stake, became determined to act.
“But we don’t know where that dungeon is, right? The dungeon’s location is kept private during streams.”
“Kōya, true, before streaming, we don’t have to disclose where the dungeon is. But after the stream ends, the records are kept by the authorities.”
Of course, I handle the paperwork for everyone. It’s a bit of a hassle, but it’s part of the office’s behind-the-scenes work. I continue explaining.
“We are required to store information about which dungeons were explored and what happened in them for the sake of gathering intel on unknown dungeons. Dungeon streamers registered with the office can always access these records.”
“So, those people who are after the bounty are using our archives to figure out which dungeon it is?”
Kōya finally seemed to understand the gravity of the situation.
“Then we need to go right now, or we’ll lose that 4 million yen!”
Kōya, sword in hand, tried to rush to the dungeon.
“Calm down, Kōya. First, let’s check the current streams to assess the situation.”
I searched for live dungeon streams. Sure enough, I found streamers diving into the dungeon we had been to.
Some streamers, who were attention-seeking, even revealed which dungeon they were heading to.
Let’s check their stream and see what’s going on in the dungeon. We can still go after that.
The screen displayed a dungeon stream. A male streamer with a sword was battling a skeleton monster wearing tattered cloth.
“H-hey! What’s this?! This thing is too strong!”
Shouldn’t you run?
But if we run now, we’ll lose the 4 million yen…
The skeleton monster reached out toward the streamer and grabbed his neck, starting to squeeze tightly.
“Ugh… ugh…”
Oh no…
He’s not getting out of this.
I’m sure everyone watching was focused on the monster and the streamer. But my attention was elsewhere—the background. It was clearly different from the place where Shiba-san and the others found the treasure chest.
What’s going on here?
For those just joining, Jimmy tried to take the treasure chest and was attacked by the skeleton monster. That’s all.
“Jimmy” is the streamer’s online name. The message says he was attacked by the monster after trying to take the treasure chest.
After a while, the stream stopped. The equipment detected the life-threatening danger to the streamer and automatically stopped the stream.
While the footage is preserved by the authorities, the moment of death rarely appears on the streaming sites.
He’s probably… already gone.
After a short time, the stream resumed. The skeleton monster was seen carrying the treasure chest back deeper into the dungeon. The stream stopped when the monster disappeared from view.
“Scary… What was that? It’s like a horror video.”
Kōya looked pale. He wasn’t as resistant to this kind of thing as I thought. Why is he a dungeon streamer?
“It seems like if you try to take the music box treasure chest, that monster will attack you.”
Shiba-san explained the situation.
“I see. In a way, we’re lucky we didn’t take it with us.”
Daigo-san seemed oddly relieved. Well, since he didn’t see any value in the chest, maybe he was relieved it wasn’t worth the trouble to bring it back and trigger the trap.
“But 4 million yen… You’re going to pass up a chance to earn that much?”
Ikezawa -san was eager to go to the dungeon for the 4 million yen. If we made that much profit, the office would be very happy.
After all, businesses need profits to survive. 4 million yen isn’t a small amount, and I can understand why he’s so motivated to get it.
“Kageno-san, what will you do? I’ll follow your instructions.”
Shiba-san asked for my guidance. I am the one officially in charge, but… what should we do? Money or life—life is definitely more important.
But money doesn’t come easily. Time or risk. There are many kinds of prices to pay, but it’s rare to get money without pain. The unfair systems of the world make this decision hard for me.
No, there must be more to consider. We still have unresolved questions.
“Why is there a 4 million yen bounty on the music box? Not on the monster, but on the music box itself. There must be some reason for this.”
“Meaning?”
Kōya still didn’t understand my point. I’ll just say it clearly.
“The bounty was placed by a human. Let’s talk to that person and find out why they put up the bounty. We need to know their motive.”
