The Dungeon Awakens

"Warning! Warning! A Dungeon Awakening has been confirmed! Immediately abort log-out! Warning! Warning! A Dungeon Awakening has been confirmed!"

Red warning text and a mechanical voice flashed up all around Karona and the Dungeon Braver members.

Startled, Karona yelped a "Hyoeh!" and, obeying the warning, aborted her log-out.

"Eh!? Eh!? W-wait, something just popped up!?"

"You're kidding… Karona-jou. Hold the restroom a little longer."

"… W-well, I was only planning to go early just in case, so I'm fine? More importantly, what is this!?"

As Karona flailed, the comments streamed past.

Dungeon Braver: Comments

[Mikoto]: "I'm so sorry, so sorry! I never dreamed the dungeon would undergo Awakening! The clear reward will be boosted, but if anyone feels things are even slightly dangerous, please all of you retreat together!"

"eh!? wait, what is this!?"

"oi oi for real? we got the real thing?"

"[2000 JPY] it's a full Dungeon-ification. first time seeing it on a live stream! use this!"

"[10000 JPY] oh. 'the main event,' huh? yamato, you got this!"

Ryutanji Karona Channel: Comments

[Kokuyou]: "Ojou-sama, we have a situation. The dungeon has become 'the real thing.' To return, you must either make it back to the start point or conquer the dungeon!"

"it's an awakening! ojou, you okay?"

"eh, eh, wait what? first time seeing this"

"[1000 JPY] if it gets dangerous, you run, you hear me?!!"

The dungeon had become "the real thing." Seeing Kokuyou's comment, Karona finally remembered what her "job" actually was.

A cleaner of "Debris" who conquered and destroyed dungeons.

Preventing real-world encroachment by "Dungeon Disasters"; that was the true calling of a BCD Player.

"… A real dungeon, isn't that supposed to be the sort of thing where they announce the location and everyone goes in to clear it together!?"

"If it spawns naturally or doesn't get resolved right after Awakening, yeah, it turns into that. This time we just got caught in a sudden Awakening. Well, this is our actual job… Yuuta, Sakura. You two ready?"

"Of course, leader. First time we've hit a sudden one too, but we got lucky. It being a relatively beginner dungeon and all."

"Really. If it were a dungeon we'd stretched to take on, we'd be leaving it to the pros and running."

The Dungeon Braver members kept slugging slimes with visible composure.

Karona, though shaken, was bolstered by their steady response and managed to lock her Ojou-sama roleplay back into place without letting it crack.

So: everyone besides her seemed to know about this phenomenon in detail.

Or rather, Karona was the one lacking the basic common sense.

"K-Kokuyou! For the sake of our viewer-samas, explain in detail. What is this 'Awakening'?"

[Kokuyou]: "Yes, Ojou-sama! To explain: in recent years, there have been many cases where a Dungeon Master-created dungeon, a pseudo-dungeon, is influenced by Debris and becomes a real dungeon. We call this 'Awakening.'"

A false dungeon turns into a true dungeon. Hence, Awakening.

Ah, so that's it, Karona mentally agreed, keeping it off her face.

Ryutanji Karona Channel: Comments

[Kokuyou]: "Naturally-occurring, spontaneously generated dungeons do exist, but those are categorized separately as 'Emergences.'"

"thanks for the explainer, kokuyou-san"

"eh, ojou. you didn't know? it's common knowledge, y'know?"

"[1000 JPY] well karona-jou's been solo-only, so yeah. good luck!"

"[300 JPY] you gotta do proper info-gathering, y'know. this is Dungeon Disaster countermeasures, after all"

"[1000 JPY] leaving some money here for cleaning fees in case of leakage"

"O-of course I knew, obviously!? I'm an Ojou-sama, after all! Oh-ho-ho-ho-gehgeh-koff! Also, I am not going to leak! Honestly, what is with you all!!"

"Well, a dungeon undergoing Awakening is mostly a multi dungeon thing. Still, not knowing about Awakening at all is a problem."

Dungeon Disasters (in other words, Debris on the verge of becoming a "real dungeon") get drawn toward BCD-built "false dungeons", which are already dungeon-shaped from the outset. That too was part of BCD's countermeasure strategy, which was why dungeon servers were distributed across locations all over Japan.

A "false dungeon" close in distance or character to where Debris was accumulating would be the one to Awaken.

However, confirmed Awakenings so far had only occurred in multi dungeons.

Dungeons spawn where people gather, or so the logic went. It was clear enough that multi dungeons accumulated Debris more readily than solo dungeons.

Ryutanji Karona Channel: Comments

[Kokuyou]: "By the way, the rewards shoot up. If anything, this is a prime earning opportunity!"

She'd been startled at first, but the phrase "prime earning opportunity" caught Karona's eye.