Interlude: Commentary
Commentary: Cast of Characters
● The Library-City Dungeon
[The Dungeon Master]
Has no name at all. Its first-person pronoun is "I". A Beast.
[Marie]
Of the Shiso family, a Rosemary Asura. Her first-person pronoun is "I".
Slightly on the tall side (163 cm). Has black hair with a blue metallic luster (structural color) tied into a single bunch, and pointed (not long) ears. Skin is white, eyes a deep, bluish black (a black darkened with blue). She dresses as a woman, but biologically she has no sex, being neither male nor female, and so does not breed.
Court rank: self-styled Director of Books.
[Mint]
Of the Shiso family, a Mint Asura.
Androgynous, and somewhat short (158 cm). Short hair of bright-green metallic luster (structural color), green; eyes also a vivid bright green. Skin is pale brown.
A super-peppermint, mainly in charge of matters of science and technology and managing the computer systems. As a dungeon monster whose species name and individual name are the same, no further Mints can be summoned.
Divides the work among twelve duplicates. The duplicates' appearances are varied: sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes indistinct, changed on a whim.
[Anne]
Of the Shiso family, a True Lavender Asura.
Tall (174 cm) and slender, with black hair of a pale-purple metallic luster (structural color) and eyes of a deep purple close to black.
Her standard outfit is a plain dark-green long dress, with a white apron and cap. Her job is looking after Master, Marie, and Mint "and company," who have no aptitude for daily life.
[Sapien-sensei]
Of the Shiso family, a Sage Asura. His first-person pronoun is "I".
Of ordinary height (167 cm). His hair is gray with a faint green in its metallic luster (structural color), the base color gray. Eyes are a greenish gray. Presents as male, with the air of a middle-aged guy.
Mainly in charge of medicine and education.
[Rāja]
Of the Shiso family, a Basil Asura. Her first-person pronoun is "I".
Tall (165 cm) and leanly muscular. Vivid deep-green hair of metallic luster (structural color), long and reaching nearly to the waist. Eyes are black (a black darkened with green). Skin is brown.
A warrior-general skilled in the naginata and in horsemanship, mainly in charge of military and administrative affairs.
[Scarlet]
Of the Shiso family, a Salvia Asura. Long-ish black hair of a deep-green metallic luster (structural color), eyes a vivid red, female in appearance.
Sales.
[Kinran]
Of the Shiso family, a Coleus Asura. Short hair of metallic luster (structural color) that shifts color (red, yellow, and so on) depending on how the light strikes it; eyes a pale purple, male in appearance. Dresses sometimes in a garishly multicolored suit, sometimes in an aloha shirt.
Sales.
[Farigole]
Of the Shiso family, a Thyme Asura. Deep-green hair close to black with a greenish metallic luster (structural color), eyes a black tinged faintly with pink. Small of stature, though that does not particularly make her look like a child.
A newspaper reporter. Holds a curator's qualification. Not a librarian.
● The Dungeon's Residents
[Okada Tarōzaemon]
Caretaker of the settlers. A half-bald man. His first-person pronoun is usually "I", but "I" to his betters.
Still not very good at reading and writing.
[Commander Kishi]
Kishi Harima-no-suke.
Head of the warrior band the "Kishi Band." His first-person pronoun varies among "I" and the like, but that is common enough among the people of this world.
[Tsuji Bunzō]
A relative of Kishi Harima-no-suke and head of the "Tsuji Band." Bunzō, of course, is not his true name but a common-name.
He likewise has relatives in Nishi Tatewaki and Kanae Danjō.
[Haruna]
A half-horse person (horse-legged) from the Land of Ke. Daughter of Oguri Kōzuke-no-suke (not Oguri Tadamasa), and a big eater. Her first-person pronoun is "I".
Horse from the waist down, with horse eyes and ears, but human-headed; coat color is bay. A mare. Her face is not that of an animal, but in this world she falls under the Beast Realm, so she counts as beastfolk.
Rāja rides her, that is, rides in a carrier-frame on her back. Quite fast (slower than a racehorse, naturally).
[Kasumi] [Tsukuba]
Half-horse sisters from the Eastern Land. Horse from the waist down, with horse eyes and ears, but human-headed. Kasumi's coat is liver-chestnut, an overall dark reddish-brown; Tsukuba's is flaxen-chestnut, the body reddish-brown but the hair and tail blonde. Both are difficult in temperament and suited to bearing warrior-generals, though of different types.
[The Nun]
Having lost her husband and seen her children become independent, she took the tonsure and came to live out the rest of her days in veneration of the Bodhisattva Kannon. She has a single attendant lady-in-waiting.
[Vasanti]
Vasanti, daughter of Sharmishtha. A self-styled dragon, a Japanese rat snake, who can make rain fall. By the dungeon's power she can take human form, but cannot change her mass. Fond of drink.
Normally a fair degree of intelligence requires a correspondingly large brain, but Vasanti, though her head is small, can somehow hold an ordinary conversation.
[Senba Sama-no-jō Jiro]
Son of Senba Kamon-no-suke, of the Murayama Party clan.
[Yokono] [Saijō]
Persimmon Asura physicians. Being all astringent persimmons, none of them are sweet.
[Rokai]
An Aloe Asura physician. Banished from the Lily family for not being a true lily.
[Yoshikawa]
A clan of catfish-beastfolk who lived in a wetland called the Nigōhanryō Marshland. In appearance they are clothed catfish that, for some reason, have arms and legs. Each, of course, has an individual personal name too.
For the record, the chieftain is an aged female catfish, Yoshikawa Kiyomi. Her son, Yoshikawa Takahisa, goes running about the place.
[Yōko]
An aged enchantress-fox. In appearance a bipedal, clothed fox. She plans to summon her kin and open a fox cafe. She is not, in fact, an attendant of the rice-god Inari, so what she eats is not inarizushi but mice. She is especially fond of tempura-fried mouse.
[Kappa]
A comparatively rare aquatic race. The one who spoke with Marie was a padre named Antonio Augusto Santos Pereira. He conveys a culture different from this region's. Considered something wholly distinct from the proscribed Christian sect; the understanding is that "the kappa believe in a god-buddha called Deus."
Among the candidates for captain of the Kappa Navy are
Miguel Manuel Coelho da Costa
and
Lourenço José Santos Ferreira.
[Asagiri Nyūdō] [Ōkura Nyūdō] [Hitomaru Nyūdō]
Octopus monks who came from the Western Land. Not mere octopuses, but octopus-beastfolk who took the tonsure and became Buddhist monks (Nyūdō). In this world, the sects in which carnivorous animals may take the tonsure are limited.
[Heta Tsuno-no-Tairyō Yaichi]
Not Toda, but Heta. His wife is Tomi Yuno. They are said to have come from far-off China to the west.
[Unakami Tarō]
Banished from the Land of Sō with his property confiscated, he came as a refugee.
[Kuki Sama-no-kami]
Of the Kuki Navy. Not the Kuki of the Kuki pirate house.
[Murakami Yachiyo]
Of the Murakami Navy. His clan came to internal strife over the development of the Hiratogawa dungeon, and he fled into exile.
[Okano Kogenta]
He was the village headman of Tanigoe, but with his well run dry he was forced to abandon the village.
[Tajima Sakura]
Her name is "Sakura," but she is not of the Rose family; she is a Primrose Asura.
[Senior Fifth Rank, Noda Uchūben]
A half-bird person, a night heron. Since his head is human he is not a bird-person, and cannot fly without borrowing the dungeon's power.
Among the other night herons are
Senior Fifth Rank, Noda Jibu-no-tayū
Senior Fifth Rank, Noda Daizen-no-daibu
and others. Among the egrets are
Terayama Misono, a little egret
Mamiya Daimon, an intermediate egret
Ōsaki Genba, a great egret
and others.
● The Land of Musashi
[The Daikan]
Yoshida Nishinoichinojō.
A pompous middle-aged man. For this region he is on the tall side, but at around 1.7 m he is hardly a giant of a man, as if he stood six shaku.
The Daikan (a non-hereditary lord) of the "Iruma" region west of the Dungeon City.
[Echizen-ya] (name not yet given)
A fuel merchant. His first-person pronoun is usually "I", though in some cases otherwise.
His dream is to deal in coal. He all but lives at the Library-City Dungeon.
[Sumida-ya]
A sake dealer. Intends to bring in a tōji and brew sake.
● The Land of Sō
[The Envoy of Sō]
The presenter of Sō, Okamoto Shuyu-no-kami. The envoy of the lord, the Kazusa-no-suke.
[The Awa Army]
Unakami Tenzen. Defeated.
● The Land of Awa
[The Awa Army]
Hosokawa Minbu-no-shō
Miyoshi Moku-no-kami, the Awa-no-kami
Satomi Uma-no-kami, the Awa-no-kami
They led a great host of Pretas to invade the Library-City Dungeon, but were defeated.
● The Land of Ke
[Tanuki-beastfolk]
The District Governor of Gunma in the Land of Ke, Takahashi Tsushima-no-kami. A large old tanuki. Female.
[Asama]
A female horse-beastfolk. One of the Four Heavenly Kings of big-eater horses.
● The Eastern Land
[The 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.
A distinguished house that styles itself with the title of yakata. For the record, Marie thinks he is "Oda" (織田).
● The Land of Sumō
[The Tea-Server Monk]
Daizen-no-suke Nyūdō Shōtō. A monk.
He comes riding a camel.