Beyond M-Eclipse: Easy Mode LIVE

———Lynda———

“Of all the time for it to rain… Whatever. Get in. Get your own seat, don’t make a fuss.” Rico said with annoyance showing through her tone quite clearly.

We all quickly got inside and the last person shut the door. A bit of the rain got in, it felt almost like a storm out there.

“I swear if it turned into a hail at some point…” Rico grumbled, not having the same nonchalant tone she usually has.

“When did you get a driver’s license? Or learn how to drive a bus for that matter.” I asked, sitting alongside Glery just behind Rico. She doesn’t feel like a car driver to me, if that makes sense.

“Doesn’t matter.” She said and started up the bus. Speaking of which, where did they get those? Is one of the unexplored buildings a giant garage? “Alright kids, sit tight and don’t make any fuss. Looks like we’ll be stuck in traffic for a while.”

“Why are you the teacher looking over us anyway? You didn’t teach any subject in our class.” That’s one thing that’s more perplexing than her knowing how to drive.

“How should I know? Looks like they’re assigning anyone with experience with dungeon diving. That’s about the extent of it.” She explained. Well that’s kind of a given, but I don’t think the driver needs to be experienced with that, just the teacher leading the students… Actually, it doesn’t look like there’s any other teachers here. Is it just her?

“So which restaurant was booked for us this time? Think it’ll be a buffet?” Trener asked, sitting on the opposite side of us with Histon, who was staying silent.

“Calm your head. We only booked a local diner today.” Rico said to curb any expectations. “It’s cheaper, and supporting local business is important.”

“Of course you’d say that.” Histon sarcastically remarked. Does he need to be a dick about that part?

The bus moves and there’s a bit of shaking. We can see the other buses also moving about, all of them going their separate ways.

With a large space inside the school area allowing for the multiple buses to move around, it didn’t take long for us to leave the premises and out into the main road.

Had to wonder how the outsiders are thinking right now… Actually, let me pull up my phone and check… Nothing just yet. Maybe I’ll look again in ten minutes.

“Well then, children. It’s gonna take a while before we reach our destination. It shouldn’t take longer than four hours.” Rico casually said. I mean, from the looks of it it’s almost like we’re going for a road trip more than anything, not that the rain will give us a clear view. “How about we talk along the way? There’s a neat function in this bus. Try them out.”

Is she talking about the screen in front of us? It’s basically the same as the one on a plane. Do they have games and movies? Let’s see here…

*Tap* *Tap*

Yeah. There are. That’s neat. I’m not sure if there’s anything here I want to do… Hm? A Q&A button? What does this do?

*Tap*

‘Send a question or request to the driver. The question will be sent anonymously.’ What the heck is this? I’m sitting right behind her, do I even need this crap? I guess I don’t have to say it out loud… So should I actually ask her anything right now.

“Hm? ‘So what’s the reason for this entire-school field trip?’. Well it’s simply a way for everyone to know what a dungeon is like. I know many of you have entered the local one at least once, be it before or after all the regulations came through. Not everyone has, since not everyone is brave enough to step in by themselves, or don’t want to follow the procedures. I have heard tales of the process taking multiple hours.” She answered the first question that came through. Would she really answer all of them? I know she doesn’t have much to do aside from driving on what would probably be a busy road, but I doubt she’s gonna answer all of that. What if there are troll questions? I guess she might ignore those, but what about the insignificant questions?

Wait. I think I read a bit too much into that.

“‘So do we even get to do anything there?’. Not really. It’s already a hassle getting the approval, and if we actively put you guys in danger, then there’s no way this is even happening.” That was a talking point, wasn’t it. Some of us were lamenting how our parents might make a huge fuss out of this. It makes sense to bring us to one if we were gonna learn to fight. It’s like getting real practice. From the sounds of it it doesn’t look like they can’t even go that far. “I know that’s probably boring for such an active class like yours. It’d probably be boring only watching one person do all the work. I kinda have to do it the same way less experienced teachers need to, sticking to schedule and all that.”

“How far can you even go in one?” I blurted out the question without using the system.

“How far down can I go down a dungeon? I mean, all of them are different, but in general I could go for a couple hundred floors.” She casually said. Somehow I doubt that’s a joke, but maybe I just got so desensitized to a bunch of things happening to not look into it as much as I should. “I’d prefer to blast through the floors until I reach the sub-400, but someone just loves to complain about how the integrity of the run falls apart when I do that. Freaking hell, it’s not like anything put in there is even a threat to me anyway. Just wasting my time playing by the rules.”

I feel like something she said in that rambling probably shouldn’t be said out loud. I didn’t even know you could blast through the floors. I never tried it, but it feels like it should never be attempted. Don’t really know why, it just gives off that vibe. It’s like how in games you’re not allowed to just blast through the dungeon, it’s not registered, stuff like that.

Speaking of which, games didn’t really see any real fluctuation in player count from the few articles I’ve seen. I don’t even know why I think that’d be the case, it’s not like it’s easy to empower yourself even if the option now exists.

But back to the topic of Rico here. There’s one thing I forgot to ask. I’m not sure if this is the right place for it though… Hmm…

“‘How much of the population knew about magic before the incident?’. A rather fascinating question that I don’t have a good number on. From my own understanding. There is a small faction of people who came together known as the Mage Remnant. They’re a tiny and weak little group who can barely do the basics. They’re like kids playing pretend. I bet nowadays they put themselves more in the public eye, probably trying to make themselves look like a big shot now that others can do what they can, as a way to compensate.” Things are starting to sound a little bit personal there. Did she run into those guys at some point? “But back to the question itself. I’d guess around… Probably in the tens of thousands. Seems like a lot, but do remember that there are billions of humans out there.”

The fact that they even exist before that point means that there is a pretty significant masquerade going on. Maybe some of those crazy conspiracies were true all along, but seven months in and it doesn’t look like any one of those are confirmed yet, surprisingly.

Now that the ten minutes is up, let’s check social media to see if they’re saying anything…

Yep, sure do. They look a bit alarmed from the captions and comments. Who wouldn’t be. The buses themselves aren’t super large or anything, but there are quite a lot coming out, making the place rather crowded.

“‘So what’s the deepest level we can go?’. I believe the maximum is twenty. I’d rather go lower than that, but it is what it is.” That’s still quite deep. I only managed to go past that with a group of people with hax. Speaking of them, I wonder how that’ll go. “Also, here’s a question for all of you. How many of you can sense power?”

A question popped up on the screen. I guess I’ll answer with a yes.

“Let’s look at the result here… Huh. Four of you said no. I’d hope all of you actually know how to do that by this point. Then again, the class I teach already knows how to do that before the school even started, so it turned into a free period, basically.” Right. That class. Of course they’re like that. “Now this is sent anonymously so I don’t know which of you don’t know how to do it. It’s not super important. We just need you guys to know the general level of power expected in there. Some foreknowledge for dungeon diving, in case you need quick extra cash. It’d be a waste if all that training weren’t used for nothing. Our school should only teach the essentials.”

“...Don’t you guys still teach about a bunch of complicated math and science stuff?” I pointed out. Most people don’t even need those.

“Those are just obligations. Besides, I’m sure there are a few who like those subjects, something some of you may not believe, it’d be rather unwelcoming to not include something more in-depth.” She explained. I don’t even think she teaches any of those.

…Doesn’t look like there are other questions coming in right now. What is Glery doing? Is she… Oh, she’s playing a game on the seat screen. It’s cute seeing the snakes in her hair also staring at it. How much vision do those even give her?

Anyway, I guess I’ll just lean on the window and look out. It’s still raining outside and there’s a bit of fog. I can’t really see that much out there.

…Actually. Does this bus have its own Wi-Fi? Maybe I can watch some videos on here in the meantime while I scroll the feed on my phone. Let’s do that.

*Tap* *Tap*

Ah, it does have Wi-Fi. Good. Now let’s connect to the website and then… Connecting the wireless earphones… There we go. Now what do I want to watch today… What about Purpurcrow? Oh, she’s… last live a few minutes ago!? Oh come on.

What about NeatHair? He hasn’t been live for a few days now. Weird, is there nothing to watch party?

Actually. What about Karra? I didn’t really follow anything she was doing for a while. What’s the last thing she did? It was… last Sunday. Let’s take a look here.

“” Actually, let me just skip a few parts here, this is kind of a long video. Skip, skip, and… What’s this?

She one-shotted the boss on the fifth floor with little difficulty, rushing in and stabbing it right in its camera-eye, shattering its body in only a few seconds before it could even react. A flaming shockwave burst out which gave a beautiful finish to the fight. I don’t really care about the in-between floors, let’s see if she gets to floor 10.

“” She shouted as she plunged the knife deep into the giant’s kneecap. Fire bursts out of the wound and starts consuming the monster. Well that’s sufficiently horrifying. I sure as hell don’t want to see that happening to me.

“Okay everyone, we’re almost out of town. Not that you’d get a good photo or two of the road trip, it’s still raining hard outside.” Rico announced as I was about to skip to the next big fight. It is still raining alright. Raining harder than before, even.

Anyway, let’s go to floor fifthteen. I don’t quite remember what it was… I think it’s a giant wolf or something? Yeah, it’s a giant wolf with three horns. Black fur, red eyes, demonic-looking.

She quickly creates an ice prison surrounding it, constricting its movements to nonexistent before blasting it with some sort of energy attack that shatters it completely… Huh. I just realized something, the video is ending soon after this. Did she burn herself out?

“” She said with the pain in her voice loud and clear. What the hell are you even doing?

I didn’t even know this was happening, so she obviously managed to recover and returned to the surface unscathed. What’s the premise of this stream again? Let me check… ‘Don’t ever go into a dungeon guns blazing’. Shouldn’t that be obvious? What dumbasses were she dealing with?

“Hey, Lynda. Wanna play?” Glery suddenly asked as she poke me. Is she talking about the game she’s playing? I didn’t even know it could be played with others.

“Sure, why not.” Just another way to pass the time. This bus trip is gonna be real long anyway.