Which Wave of Settlers Was This Again? Nobody Knows Anymore

[Biwabashi]

"Comrade Lord Director of Books, business is booming, I see."

The fuel merchant Echizen-ya had come by. Migrants, merchants, and adventurers crossed the bridge one after another, bound for the dungeon. Going the other way were merchants and adventurers headed for Iruma.

"That said, the migrants have come in greater numbers than expected, and conversely the buying-up of provisions isn't going so well."

"Food prices have been climbing, after all. The flood of travelers to this dungeon has something to do with it, but as I mentioned the other day, it seems Sō, above all, is placing huge orders."

"Could Sō be planning to make war on Awa? They won't be coming for this dungeon, I should think."

"In other words, they can't beat Sō. And Sō knows it too."

"Overconfidence is forbidden, but this library-city dungeon is already ill-suited to assault by a large force. Ordinarily a dungeon is subdued by a small band of elite adventurers, yet here the unique law forbids it: 'No Unauthorized Entry.' Of course there are weak points, but those are a secret."

"Sō is recruiting mercenaries and adventurers on a grand scale, so it must be to stand against Awa."

[Core Room]

"Master, the settlers are first gathered into the dungeon proper and the five walled towns, where we confirm their trades and assign them to villages or towns according to their own wishes. After teaching them what they need to know to live in this library-city dungeon, they move on to the houses where they'll actually reside. That's the procedure. We're about ready to launch the first farming village. However…"

"However?"

"At this rate the libraries will eventually run dry, so I'm looking into whether we can continue summoning elementary-school buildings by way of unlocking the 'school library.'"

"It was a question of either the number of resident adventurers or the height differential, wasn't it. But come to think of it, that '10,000 adventurers staying in the dungeon at once' figure Mint-san mentioned, if you add the enemy army and the residents together back when we repelled Tsukuba Naiyaku-no-jō, haven't we already met it?"

"The first wave was nearly 10,000, and with the residents added in we've certainly cleared ten thousand. If that's so, then it would be either 100,000 people or 100,000 feet. The unlock threshold might be an awkward, in-between number. Or else 100,000 volumes of holdings would do it."

"Reading 100,000 volumes. That'd be quite the undertaking."

"The length of books varies, but even reading a brisk five a day on average, 100,000 volumes would take over fifty years."

"Even splitting it among everyone who can read and write, we'd never keep pace."

"For something like Tier-Group 3 (the university library) or Tier-Group 6 (the largest municipal library), with two million volumes, it would take a thousand years; but since a dungeon's Named monsters effectively have no lifespan, it's possible if you take the time. Though, granted, no one is going to read every single book in a library."

"With no work to do and ten books a day, that's still five hundred years."

"Honestly, at that level, nothing but reading books on end for hundreds of years, I rather feel it would amount to the torments of hell. I suspect 'Library Hell' is one of these: being forced to read all day long; or, conversely, having a great many books before you but being forbidden to read a single one; or else being buried under books, and, as one of the damned, unable to die."

"Before any of that, I couldn't possibly remember two million volumes."

"A tree-type Asura can write any amount of memory into her 'true-body' plant, but the memory density is low, so it would require something truly enormous, a veritable 'World Tree.' I intend to press ahead with arborization in place of digitization myself, but even I'm not contemplating going as far as two million volumes."

"Then again, it's not impossible that the 'number of books read' becomes an unlock condition for some feature somewhere."

"A bookworm, is it? Master, insects can't be made large enough to carry books about. Although, originally, that's an English figure of speech."

"Could a giant ant not exist?"

"It could exist only inside a dungeon possessing the corresponding 'unique law.' Just as foxes and tanuki, when they shapeshift, normally obey the law of conservation of mass (this dungeon included), departing from the laws of natural science is no easy matter. Mind you, 'shapeshifting' itself is quite the exceptional ability."