A Naval Fleet Defects to Us

[The Nameless Bridge]

Along the Nakayama Highway, just short of Hiratsuka in the Toshima Magistracy, a nameless bridge spans a dry riverbed. It isn't that it's beneath the dignity of a name; it's only that, because the terrain differs from the otherworld's, no one has yet decided whether it should be Toda Bridge, Shimura Bridge, Itabashi Bridge, or something else entirely.

The bridge has a barrier, where a decree board has been raised reading: "Decreed. The Christian sect has stood proscribed these many years. Should any suspicious person be found, he is to be reported. As a reward: for an informant against a bateren, five hundred pieces of silver; for an informant against an iruman, three hundred pieces of silver…" But not a soul at the barrier pays it any mind. Even the Preta that Marie is supposed to detest pass straight through, so long as they're merchants or adventurers.

"Pardon me. The name's Unakami Tarō. I should like to relocate to these parts. I beg your kind indulgence."

To the barrier on the Hiratsuka side of the bridge, at the edge of the dungeon's sphere of influence, came a band who, by the look of them, had fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

"Tomiki Chōkei of Kanae Village. If it's relocation you're after, have you a temple-registration certificate?"

"Aye. We were stripped of our property and banished by Sō, so I have both the temple-registration certificate and the transfer document."

In short: confiscation of all property, followed by exile.

"I'm not sure I should ask, but, what did you do?"

"My grandmother, Unakami Tenzen, got carried away, joined hands with Awa, and raised troops. While she was away, Sō marched in on us. There were no soldiers at the castle and holding out was utterly impossible, so I meant to cut my belly and surrender, but I was told my belly 'wasn't worth the cutting,' and the whole clan and all our retainers were banished without exception."

"And this Tenzen of yours?"

"It pains me greatly to say it, but whether she was cut down here in her attack or simply lost, her whereabouts are unknown. I know full well I'm in no position to ask for asylum, but we've nowhere else to go. As things stand, we'll dry up into husks out in the desert. Though perhaps that, too, is the retribution for all the killing we've done, all the fish we've turned into dried fish over the years."

[Core Room]

"Aide-de-camp scribe-dono, that's the report that came in. It's a tale that's almost too convenient, to be sure."

The report came in from Mint in the control room.

"Maybe control needs a dedicated operator too."

"Once the traffic increases further, it likely will. If we're to keep watch around the clock, we'd need at least four or five settlers or retainers on a three-shift rotation. Then again, it's dangerous to let settlers into the heart of the dungeon, so if we're to use them, we'd need a control room in a separate tier-group."

"The Unakami were the Iinuma lot, weren't they. The dungeon that produces dried fish, was it?"

"A dungeon that produces fish. Since fish don't keep, they're processed into dried fish. The Iinuma dungeon is shaped like a kettle, with a narrow mouth and a sea spreading out in the back. From that shape, it's also called Chōshi, the sake ewer."

So Marie explained. Not a tokkuri flask.

"Marie-san, a sea dungeon, you say. That means the Unakami are well versed in the sea too, then. Naval as they are."

"That's a possibility, yes."

"So, can the Unakami be trusted?"

"They can't."

said Marie flatly.

"Then shall we send them packing?"

"No. It'd be a nuisance to have them scheming somewhere else, but if we pen them up inside the sphere of influence, then should they turn traitor, we need only bury the whole clan in the sand, like the Uchigashima clan of Kiunjō Castle, and that's the end of it. If anything, keeping them on a tight leash is safer, and putting them to hard use for this dungeon's sake is more profitable still. And, if they can handle ships, we'll be spared the trouble of summoning a merchant-marine school and spending a precious retainer slot."

"Good enough! Then let's have them come this way… Now, where to settle them, I wonder."

"Going by the obvious, twenty ri out to the northwest or northeast, or, giving priority to the highway toward Oda (織田) Castle, thirty ri east. Which would it be?"

Properly speaking, it is Oda (小田) Castle. This world's Oda Castle is a full 300 km from the Library-City Dungeon, a distance that makes one wish for an airplane, like going from Tokyo to Nagoya or Sendai. And, the otherworld having no Shinkansen, one cannot get to Nagoya or Sendai by train.