The First Ten Thousand Koku
Arc Seven: Cast of Characters
● The Library-City Dungeon
A tower-type dungeon standing atop a hill some 100 m high in the uninhabited wasteland of "Adachi," built by stacking up a great many libraries. Like Worker-Peasant Russia, its name contains no proper noun. For its accumulated energy, its scale is considerable.
Type: Library (produces books, newspapers, and magazines)
Scale: 482 tier-groups / 3,520 floors / 15 km tall / 6.4 million m² total floor area
The floor count goes a little higher or lower depending on how one counts penthouses, attics, and underground machine rooms.
Number of Monsters: 8 (all Named)
Unique Laws: no open flame indoors; No Unauthorized Entry to the Core Room and the like; able to maintain a living environment in which even the high floors don't induce altitude sickness?
Note that libraries such as the one in Kishi Village are, by design, not counted toward the "tier-group total," yet they still function as part of the dungeon.
【The Dungeon Master】
Still has no name at all. Refers to itself as "I". A Beast.
【Marie】
Shiso family, Rosemary Asura. Refers to herself as "I".
Slightly above average in height (163 cm). Has black hair with a blue metallic luster (structural color) gathered in a single bunch, and pointed (not long) ears. White skin; eyes of a deep, bluish black (a black darkened with blue). Dresses as a woman, but biologically has no sex (neither male nor female), and so does not reproduce. She can increase her numbers by cloning, but the result is merely a separate individual identical in genetics.
Court rank: self-styled Director of Books (equivalent to Junior Fifth Rank, Upper Grade).
【Mint】
Shiso family, Mint Asura.
Androgynous, and somewhat short (158 cm). Short bright-green hair with a metallic luster (structural color), and eyes likewise a vivid bright green. Pale-brown skin.
A super peppermint, chiefly handling matters of science and technology and managing the computer systems. Being a dungeon monster whose species name and individual name are one and the same, she cannot be summoned again.
She divides the work among twelve duplicates. The duplicates' appearances vary widely: sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes indistinct, changed on a whim.
【Anne】
Shiso family, Lavender Asura.
Tall (174 cm) and slender, with black hair of a pale-purple metallic luster (structural color) and eyes of a deep, near-black purple.
Standard dress is a plain dark-green long dress with a white apron and cap. Her work is looking after the helpless Master, Marie, and Mint "and the lot of them."
【Sapien-sensei】
Shiso family, Sage Asura. Refers to himself as "I".
Average height (167 cm). Gray hair with a faintly green metallic luster (structural color), gray at its base. Eyes of a greenish gray. Presents male, with a middle-aged-fellow air.
Chiefly handles medicine and education.
【Rāja】
Shiso family, Basil Asura. Refers to herself as "I".
Tall (165 cm) and leanly muscular. Long hair of a vivid deep green with a metallic luster (structural color), reaching nearly to her waist. Black eyes (a black deepened with green). Brown skin.
A warrior-general skilled in the naginata and in horsemanship, chiefly handling military and administrative affairs.
【Scarlet】
Shiso family, Salvia Asura.
Long-ish black hair of a deep-green metallic luster (structural color), vivid red eyes; appears female. Favors flashy red clothing.
Sales.
【Kinran】
Shiso family, Coleus Asura.
Short hair of a metallic luster (structural color) that shifts to red or yellow depending on how the light strikes it; pale-purple eyes; appears male. Dresses sometimes in a garish, polychrome suit, sometimes in an aloha shirt.
Sales.
【Farigole】
Shiso family, Thyme Asura.
Near-black deep-green hair with a greenish metallic luster (structural color); eyes of black tinged faintly with pink. Petite, though she doesn't particularly look like a child.
A newspaper reporter. Holds a curator qualification. Not a librarian.
● The Dungeon's Residents
【Okada Tarōzaemon】
Caretaker of the settlers. A half-bald man. Ordinarily calls himself "I", but "I" to his superiors.
His reading and writing aren't good, so he's in intensive training.
【Commander Kishi】
Kishi Harima-no-suke.
Head of the warrior band "the Kishi Band." Switches among "I" and so forth for his first person, a common enough thing among the people of this world.
【Tsuji Bunzō】
A relative of Kishi Harima-no-suke and head of "the Tsuji Band."
【Haruna】
A horse-beastfolk (horse-legged) hailing from the Land of Ke. Daughter of Oguri Kōzuke-no-suke (not Oguri Tadamasa) and a big eater. Refers to herself as "I".
Horse from the waist down, and in the eyes and ears, but human-headed. Bay coat. A mare. Her face isn't an animal's, but since this world's animals belong to the Beast Realm, she counts as beastfolk.
She's of no difficult temperament, so she's unsuited to bearing a warrior into battle, but Rāja rides her, that is, sits in a carrier-frame on her back. Quite fleet of foot (slower than a racehorse, naturally).
【Kasumi】【Tsukuba】
Horse-beastfolk sisters from the Eastern Land. Horse from the waist down, and in the eyes and ears, but human-headed. Kasumi's coat is liver-chestnut, a dark reddish-brown overall. Tsukuba's is flaxen-chestnut: body reddish-brown, but hair and tail blonde. Both are of difficult temperament and well suited to bearing a warrior, though of differing types.
【The Nun】
Her husband having died and her children grown independent, she took the tonsure and came to spend her remaining years in worship of Lady Kannon. She has one attendant lady-in-waiting.
【Vasanti】
Vasanti, daughter of Sharmishtha. A self-styled dragon-form Japanese rat snake who can make rain fall. By the dungeon's power she can take human form, but cannot alter her mass along with it. Unlike snakes in general, she is fond of liquor.
【Senba Sama-no-jō Jiro】
Of the Murayama Party clan; son of Senba Kamon-no-suke.
【Yokono】【Saijō】
Persimmon Asura physicians. All of them are astringent persimmons, so none are sweet.
【Rokai】
An Aloe Asura physician. Exiled from the family for not being a true lily.
【Yoshikawa】
A clan of catfish-beastfolk who lived in the marshland of Nigōhanryō. They look like clothed catfish that, for some reason, have arms and legs. Each, of course, has an individual name.
【Yōko】
An aged enchantress-fox. Looks like a bipedal fox in clothing. She plans to summon her kin and open a fox cafe. Not being a retainer of the Inari deity in particular, her favorite food is not inari-zushi but rat tempura.
【The Kappa】
A comparatively rare aquatic race. The one who spoke with Marie was a padre named Antonio Augusto Santos Pereira. He brings a culture different from this region's. Thought to be wholly distinct from the proscribed Christian sect; the perception is that "kappa worship a god-buddha called Deus."
【Asagiri Nyūdō】【Ōkura Nyūdō】【Hitomaru Nyūdō】
Octopus monks who came from the western countries. Not mere octopuses, but octopus-beastfolk who took the tonsure and became Buddhist monks (nyūdō).
● The Land of Musashi
【The Daikan】
Yoshida Nishinoichinojō.
A pompous middle-aged fellow. On the tall side for this region, but at about 1.7 m he's hardly a giant of six shaku.
Daikan (a non-hereditary lord) of the "Iruma" district to the west of the dungeon-city.
【Echizen-ya】(given name not yet given)
A fuel merchant. Most often refers to himself as "I", though it varies by the occasion.
His dream is to deal in coal. The first merchant to do business with the library-city dungeon; perhaps owing to a book he picked up in the library, he calls Marie "Comrade," though he is a man far removed from communism.
● The Land of Sō
【Sō's Envoy】
Presenter of Sō, Okamoto Shuyu-no-kami. Envoy of the realm's lord, Kazusa-no-suke.
● The Land of Ke
【Tanuki-Beastfolk】
District Governor of Gunma in Ke, Takahashi Tsushima-no-kami. A big old tanuki. Female. Her favorite food is chicken heads, but what Marie is raising is the plant cockscomb.
【Asama】
A horse-beastfolk mare. Called one of the Four Heavenly Kings of big-eater horses.
● The Eastern Land
【Castle-Lord of Oda】
Oda Ukyō-no-suke. The young castle-lord of Oda, son of the late Oda Sanuki-no-kami. His name is Nobuharu. Marie thinks it's "Oda (織田)."
● The Land of Sumō
【Tea-Server Monk】
Daizen-no-suke Nyūdō Shōtō. A monk.
Comes riding a camel.