At the End of Revenge, There You Are ~The Scum Who Killed My Beloved, Prepare Yourselves! I Will Drag You All to Hell... Wait, What? Why Are the Heroine and the Demoness Coming After Me, a Woman!?(GL) - Chapter 6

Inside the viewing booth, I searched for the footage I needed.

The sheer number of stored videos here was overwhelming.

Of course, that was to be expected.

After all, this archive contained every recorded dungeon exploration from all across Tokyo.

With thousands of explorers active in the city, each with varying expedition frequencies, the sheer volume of data was unimaginable.

Fortunately, the search function was well-organized.

By entering a party name, I could pull up a list of their recorded explorations.

Yuzuha’s party was called “Golden Hawk.”

A name far too grand for those rotten scumbags. If anything, they should be apologizing to actual hawks.

<20XX-02-06 15:28:17 Musashino Dungeon “Golden Hawk”>

There it was.

This was it.

My fingers trembled as I hovered over the file.

I had come here specifically to watch this footage, yet now that it was in front of me, I was scared.

There was a chance I would see Yuzuha… in a state too horrific to bear.

A chill ran down my spine.

Flashes of her lifeless body flooded my mind.

But I couldn’t run away.

If I ran now, I’d never achieve anything.

I needed to know.

The footage began playing—at first, everything seemed normal.

Yuzuha had said the expedition was tedious, and I could see why.

The party was wading through a dense, overgrown forest, pushing aside tangled vegetation as they advanced.

The monsters they encountered were all plant-based—

Treants, Murder Plants, Carnivorous Vines…

The party’s leader and the female mage set everything ablaze with fire magic as they moved forward.

A lightly-armored man used mapping magic to guide their path.

Occasionally, beast-type or undead monsters appeared, which the warrior and the hand-to-hand combat specialist handled.

Whenever someone was injured, Yuzuha healed them.

Something about the lightly-armored guy seemed familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

Maybe I’d seen him around the Guild.

After all, we both worked in Tokyo—it wasn’t impossible.

As for the others, I didn’t recognize them.

For a high-ranked party, their teamwork was well-balanced.

So then… why?

The smooth progression ended about two hours in.

(Though I was fast-forwarding, so it hadn’t taken me that long to reach this point.)

The party descended to a lower level—a vast open plain, completely different from the dense forest above.

No monsters in sight.

These types of locations were common in dungeons.

People often referred to them as rest areas.

The reason why such safe zones existed inside dangerous dungeons was still unknown.

One popular theory suggested that each dungeon floor functioned as a separate dimension, and the stairwells were where those dimensions merged—preventing monsters from spawning in those areas.

The leader said something to Yuzuha.

…Why is there no audio in these recordings?

I knew it was standard protocol, but at this moment, I hated it.

As soon as the leader spoke, Yuzuha’s expression twisted in anger.

Meanwhile, the leader smirked disgustingly, and the other members looked on in amusement.

Bastards.

What the hell did he say?

Yuzuha shouted something back at him.

I felt an overwhelming urge to scream at the screen.

“Run, Yuzuha!”

Even though I knew it was just a recording, I wanted to warn her.

Then—

The female mage, the one who had been burning through plant monsters earlier, suddenly grabbed Yuzuha by the collar and shoved her backward.

…What the fvck are you doing, you b1tch?!

Yuzuha fell.

The others stood up, surrounding her.

They were talking—saying something as they closed in.

…What?

What the hell are you doing?

STOP.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HER?!

Was it not a demon that killed her?

Was it these bastards?!

<Emergency Notification>

…What?

My breath caught in my throat.

Just as I was gripping the monitor, staring in horror—

A warning alert flashed across the screen.

And the video cut off.

…Now?

NOW?!

I was just about to see what happened!

The alert kept flashing.

I had no choice but to tap it.

“Shinomiya, you there? Sorry, but I need you to handle a little errand.”

“…HAH?!”

“Shhh—”

If my boss had been standing right in front of me at that moment, saying something so ridiculous at such an utterly ridiculous time, I would have punched him straight in the face.

Unfortunately, he was speaking through the screen.

Which meant I couldn’t.

But then… I noticed something.

As he spoke, his right index finger pointed upward—a subtle signal.

A warning?

Right now, we were accessing the footage using his supervisor-level authorization.

Had someone higher up noticed?

No—if they had, the video would have been shut down immediately.

Then this so-called “errand” must have come from above.

Something I had to do.

At the worst possible time.

And excuse me, but wasn’t I supposed to be on paid leave today?

“Look, I know it’s your day off. But you’re the only one who can do this.”

The boss pushed forward before I could even voice my frustration.

I had no choice.

At least I’d confirmed the footage existed.

I could come back later.

For now, I swallowed my frustration and made my way back to the office.

And the “urgent errand” I was assigned?

Let’s just say I could have screamed “FUCK” at the top of my lungs and no one would have blamed me.

What was the task?

“Find the investigation report on the ‘Shinagawa Vanishing Incident’ from a year ago.”

Apparently, the Tokyo Branch Director had specifically requested me to retrieve it.

…Really?

Couldn’t anyone do that?

Annoyed, I navigated to the proper folder—

…Except.

It wasn’t there.

Wait, what?

Why wasn’t it there?

I had handled that case myself. That’s probably why I was assigned to retrieve it.

It had been about a five-person party that accidentally stumbled into a hidden room inside the Shinagawa Dungeon.

There, they encountered something pitch black—a formless entity.

Before they knew it, they had been forcefully ejected from the room.

By the time they regained their senses, they were outside—one member missing.

A female explorer.

Gone without a trace.

The dungeon footage didn’t capture anything inside the hidden room.

And no matter how hard we searched, our Special Investigation Unit was unable to find that room again.

The case was ultimately ruled as an irregular dungeon event, meaning the missing woman was simply unfortunate.

I remember she was older than me—a married woman.

Gen-san had mentioned how terrible it felt explaining things to her grieving husband.

A civilian with no ties to dungeon exploration.

…

Since the file was missing from the main database, I checked the backup server instead.

And there it was.

Someone must have accidentally deleted it.

(Or at least, that’s the official explanation I told myself.)

Suppressing my irritation, I reported back to the ever-so-gentle Tokyo Branch Director.

“Must’ve been someone’s mistake, huh? Thanks. Worst case, I would’ve had to rewrite it from memory. The audit is coming up, you see. Sorry for bothering you on your day off.”

Yeah, yeah. Can we wrap this up already?

I barely waited for him to finish before rushing back to the Video Records Room.

Dragging Kimura by the arm.

“Oi, at least be a little more gentle—”

“Hurry up.”

“Tch… fine. There, it’s open.”

“Thanks. I’ll take it from here.”

“Yeah, but listen—”

He started to say something, but I didn’t care.

I needed to see the rest of that footage.

Without hesitation, I re-entered the viewing booth, pulled up the search menu, and— …The footage was gone.

It had been deleted from the list.