Hajime contemplates his descent into the dungeons, staring through the glass elevator at the angels, clergy, and loyal flock worshiping ads with holy fervor.
This sickens him deeply.
Trying to escape his thoughts, Hajime makes small talk with the secretary:
“Hey… I never asked your name, Ms.—”
The angel hurriedly replies, “My name is Adael. It means ‘The Ornament of God.’”
Hajime chuckles. “Fitting name.”
The elevator keeps descending for a long while. Then he asks, “Are you going to participate in this selection?”
Adael happily answers, “I got the girls back together! We’re making a comeback!”
Hajime, knowing all her efforts are futile, replies with quiet pity, “I wish you the best of luck. Please enjoy the experience.”
She fist-bumps the air with radiant enthusiasm.
“By the way,” Hajime asks, “do you know who’s participating this year?”
The secretary, ignoring confidentiality agreements, answers truthfuly, “There will be 777 participants this year! Notably, the Cultivators will make an appearance for the first time in 800 years.”
Hajime is caught off guard. “Cultivators… are you referring to farmers?”
He truly hopes that’s the case.
Adael shakes her head. “Noooo, they’re a race of humans who like living in caves, they claim that staying holed up in a trance helps them to better "cultivate immortality.’”
Hajime clutches his heart. “How is that even possible?”
Adael beams. “We should thank Buyus_Anonymous123 for his diverse contributions to this world.”
Hajime feels a wave of dread, knowing what kind of psychopathy that name alludes to.
“What did he do?” he asks.
“Details are vague,” Adael says, “but his ambition was to return to his world as fast as possible. He claimed he wanted to right a wrong so great that he would die if his mother ever found out about it.”
Hajime nods solemnly. “Yeah… I kind of understand that motivation.”
She continues, “He mastered dimensional ad magic and broke the barriers between worlds. He jumped into an unstable portal he concocted in testing site #78763937 on the Kunlad Continent. No one knows where he went, but oddly enough, that continent started spawning mysterious people who killed anyone who looked at them the wrong way.”
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Hajime makes a note to himself: Never go to Kunlad.
Then he says, “Let me guess… the participant for the Saintess position is rumored to be a cold beauty who shatters the hearts of mortals with one look?”
Adael gasps. “Oh my, you’re so well-informed! You truly are a hero!”
Hajime stares at the ground. “Fucking choke on a bag of cloth, Buyus…”
He sighs. “Any other things I should keep an eye out for?”
Adael nods cheerfully. “Representatives from Furrutopiad are going to put on a great show this year too!”
Hajime winces. “Great…”
“And,” she adds, “the Magicad Imperium will send a very bad woman who’s rumored to be… rather nice.”
Hajime squints. “A villainess character who’s secretly nice?”
Adael claps. “It’s a genius gimmick—turning the genre on its head!”
“Sure… totally not annoying,” Hajime mutters.
The elevator stops at the lowest floor. The doors open to the screams of tortured souls, crying out for the sweet nectar of ads.
Hajime asks, “Why are they in this state?”
The angel proudly begins to advertise the dungeon:
“The perfection of this dungeon is divine! Anti-ad seals prevent these heathens from experiencing the beauty they betrayed. They are broken and reformed to only enjoy the finest advertisements—never to betray Deus’s will again!”
Hajime grimaces. “Why are there so many?”
“We recently got an influx of repentant's after Elnora intervened on Micro,” Adael explains.
They walk deeper into the dungeon. Prisoners scream in repentance—some for feet, others for Alphonso-sama.
Hajime pauses when he spots two familiar faces: one training rats, the other playing with roaches.
“Hey… I remember you guys!”
The two look up, their eyes widening in horror.
“You!!! Despoiler of our Kingdom!!! Give it back!!!”
Hajime grins. “Hello there, my EXP bags! Wait… you were players? Damn it, now I’ll have to amend my review…”
He thinks for a moment. “…Nah, not worth it.”
They scream again. “Naked Demon! You will rue this day for your sins!”
Adael flashbangs them with holy light. The roaches burn. The rats scatter.
Hajime sighs. “I understand hatred, my friends… You are deserving witnesses to what it does.”
Still screaming from their burned retinas, the prisoners shout, “You ruined us! We’ll hate you to the end of our lives!”
“You have the right,” Hajime says calmly. “I won’t deny your hatred. Just remember… in this world, no one hates more than I.”
They recall the Aura of the burning Asura and, trembling, prostrate themselves before the hero.
“W-we… want to reform! Please spare us!”
Adael claps. “Wow! These were the hardest to reform in the recent batch. Excellent work!”
Hajime simply says, “I only spoke the truth.”
They arrive at the Cheapo Hero Room—a dingy broom-closet-sized space surrounded by screams and despair.
“Here we are,” Adael says cheerfully. “You may go in.”
He opens the door and finds a generic room: rats, roaches, 800 years of filth, and a bed petrified by dust.
Hajime asks, “Do you have something to cancel the noise?”
Adael immediately advertises the magical properties of angel feathers. She plucks two from her wings and turns them into angelic earplugs, offering them as a free sample.
“Thank you,” Hajime says. “I’ll be seeing you later.”
Adael clasps her hands and beams. “Yesss, Hero!”
Hajime plops down on a stool, which instantly breaks. Sitting on the floor, he mutters, “You guys… you’re awfully quiet. Say something.”
Whalescalibur: “Something.”
Valiant: “You beat me to the punch. Well played!”
Caladblock: “Ahhh, sorry hon, I’m just so happy we changed the marriage clause. I zoned out, ARA~”
Hajime glances at the door. “Noisy bunch out there…”
He puts in the angelic earplugs and lies down on the stone bed—marginally cleaner than the floor—and finally drifts to sleep.
