Cricket looks incredulously at Haru. "Did you find another worthwhile person? I thought you were the only one."

"Wow, that's high praise." Cricket hops into his lap for scritches and the camera turns accordingly.

"I feel humbled and honoured that I was accepted as worthwhile. I hope I can live up to it."

"There's probably something wrong with you, but I don't know what it is yet."

This monster cat encapsulates the distilled essence of the catpersonality, it's amazing, Yoo-min is delighted. "Hopefully it'll be something fixable."

Paw-lick. "Sometimes it is. For example Haru did not have a cat but then he solved that problem."

"Well, seeking out a cat would have done me much less good before you were available." Pet pet.

"You've been together since Haru manifested?"

"Not week-of, but shortly after. My mother fortunately finds it merely exasperating when he insults her."

"This is the first time I've met an ex-dungeon monster, I'm super curious but I'm not sure if there's anything that would be a faux pas to ask."

"He's from a 4D dungeon that opened near Osaka five years back! They killed it while he was on somebody's roof. He was sort of loitering with the guild, bribed with sashimi for help navigating other 4D dungeons since he can still do that, but he was not the world's most popular co-worker and now when something 4D opens he reports direct to me, even if I don't go inside."

"Oh, oof, I hear those are always such a pain to deal with. I'm thankfully not specced for them at all so it's not my headache but my guildmates whose headache it is always spend a month afterwards complaining about them."

"Yeah, I think that's why they kept him rather than turning him out on the street to catch pigeons for a living, they'd rather be told that they're morons while being pulled kata than simply not be pulled kata when they've gotta go that way."

"Did you look different before your dungeon died?" he asks Cricket.

"I was much bigger and venomous."

"I bet you must've been so fearsome. Are there pictures of that version of you?"

Since Haru is interested in the topic of Dungeons: What The Fuck he has actually already interviewed Cricket a lot about what he remembers from being part of a dungeon (unfortunately, it's not much). There is some security camera footage of Big Cricket, but not a really good picture, since he was, uh, a monster, plausibly trying to eat people, though they don't think he in particular got anybody before the dungeon was slain. No other monsters escaped the same dungeon to compare notes with.

And blah blah blah blah it doesn't even help but he can't concentrate on anything else till he's had longer with his feet on Yamanaka's feet. It would be a lot faster if she wanted to platonically make out. She's O-positive and he's A-positive, so she can give him blood albeit not vice versa, but they save that for when they're in a hurry to get him up and running again.

Eventually he manages to let Yoo-min off the phone.

This was fun! They should do it again sometime!

Jaeha hadn't originally been scheduled for this dungeon but he got specifically and personally requested for the most peculiar of reasons: apparently the psychic effect it's causing on its victims is really hard to clear. There are a couple of espers who managed to go in and not get affected, including this guy with a stealth power that also happens to be able to resist psychic effects fully, but Jaeha is to shield as many people as he can and then save the victims from the persistent feeling that the air is poisonous and they need to hold their breaths until they fall unconscious, or the certainty that they're drowning, or any number of other creative ways the dungeon has found to fuck with them. There are monsters, too, which are being held back some, but they really really need to send in some big guns soon.

It's in Japan, so he'll need a teleport, but he wasn't doing anything else in particular so he might as well.

Public face on. "Hi! I'm Kang Jaeha, I hear you need me to shield some people and clear some other people?"

The support staff he's talking to jumps when they hear his voice but then relaxes at his words. "Oh, yes, Kang Jaeha-san, thank you we're so swamped—here, let me get the espers who need to go in and then you can get started with the victims—"

He really doesn't feel like going into that dungeon at all so it's a good thing there's work for him to do outside. In the worst case he can just say that he's too backlashed and shouldn't go into the dungeon right now, but they probably won't press.

Victims are piling up. Stealth guy keeps going in and putting a person over his shoulder and hauling them out. He has his serious face on because these people are suffering, but,

, oh, a new face! "Hi! Are you the miracle sanity dispenser, I've got another patient for you." Gently placing the person in a lawn chair time; holding your breath till you pass out isn't great but it's not stretcher-and-ambulance dangerous because you start breathing again once you pass out. Fistbump once his hands are free?

"I am, indeed!" What is this man doing. He wants a fist bump? Is—