The Fifth Shiso: Summon Alexander the Great and Conquer the World

[Tier-Group 3 Rooftop Garden]

"Alexandros III, the Conqueror King."

Out of nowhere Marie says something odd. Some book or other put her up to it, no doubt.

"The herb that none other than Alexander the Great (English reading) brought back, bearing a name derived from the Greek word for 'king,' the Conqueror King. Let's make this our next Shiso to summon."

"Marie-san, surely Alexander the Great is a bit much to take on?"

"Not the man himself, only a Shiso connected to him, so in theory there's no problem. This time, Master, please do think up a proper name."

"Ah, r-right."

"A while back I mentioned tracking down and conquering a botanical-garden dungeon, to get the bulbs we can't otherwise obtain. Remember?"

"There was such a talk, yes. It got shelved when the Daikan brought us potatoes and the like."

"If we summon the Conqueror King and place a human army under him, we can organize an expeditionary force and subjugate a dungeon."

"Marie-san, we don't even know whether such a dungeon exists."

"The expedition is a matter for later, of course, but first we sweep the surrounding pirates clean and turn every last one of them into dungeon fertilizer."

"An army, whether it's dungeon monsters or hired humans, takes an enormous amount to maintain, you know."

"There we'll have no choice but to expand it step by step, watching the books."

[Core Room]

The summoned Shiso (Asura) looked female, on the tall side, about Marie's height but shorter than Anne, with a lean, muscular build. Long hair of a vivid deep-green metallic luster (structural color), reaching nearly to the waist. The eyes were black, but not the dark brown-black of a human's; a black deepened from green. Being native to India, the skin was brown. Cry and rage as Hitler might, "Aryans" are not, by nature, white. And of course what had been summoned was an Asura, whose hair and eye pigments differ from a human's.

That said, the outfit was a top-and-bottom tracksuit, neither Indian nor Greek in style. Note that, unlike humans, an Asura need not bother much with care even when the hair is long. Biologically speaking it isn't hair to begin with, after all.

"I'm Basil. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Master, this one looks promising. Looks well-trained."

"'Basil' derives from the Greek for 'king,' and being native to India, that would be 'Rāja,' meaning king in the Indian tongue (here meaning Sanskrit)."

The Dungeon Core spoke:

"So then, General Rāja, was it the army officers' academy, or the naval academy?"

"By 'setting' I'm a law-faculty graduate specializing in political science, urban administration in particular. As a hobby I've dabbled in geography and history too. I was in an athletic club, but I've never served in the Self-Defense Forces."

"You're not a soldier in the first place!"

"How strange. I was trying to summon a general. I wonder if there's some sort of constraint on which Shiso can be summoned."

So says Marie. She has come quite close to the truth.

"I… was I a child you didn't need?"

"No, no, nothing of the sort. It's only that you're different from what I'd anticipated, so I'd like to reconsider what work to put you to. Er… not a soldier, then. So, any grounding in the martial arts? You were in an athletic club, I think."

"Yes. By 'setting,' it's only a setting, but in high school I was in the naginata club, and in university the equestrian club. Of course, in reality I never attended high school or university either."

"Oh, Marie-san, this is…"

"Without question a warrior-general."

The Dungeon Master and Marie are picturing something like Guan Yu astride the Red Hare, but no one would ever have trained to wield a naginata from horseback, so they have a great deal wrong. Besides, it's Guan Yu's beard that is long, not his hair. (His hair is gathered up on top of his head with a coronet set over it.)

"… Er, and a law-faculty graduate means that, in theory, you could serve as prosecutor, defense counsel, and judge all at once."

"A kangaroo court, is it? Besides, by 'setting' I never sat the bar exam."

"Specializing in political science, and so an administrative official."

"Master, Alexander the Great was a conqueror, but a king is fundamentally one who conducts politics; the likes of Richard I are the exception. Since the root of 'Basil' is the common noun 'king,' perhaps it was only natural it should turn out like this."

Marie pivots like this and starts working out a remedy.

"In any case, the settlers already number over a thousand, so managing them is essential. Even if the mayor and council members are chosen by election, we'll still need a bureaucratic apparatus, administrative officials first among them. If we just think of it as that side of things moving up the queue a little, then…"

"From here on, I'm in your hands."

"So, Marie-san, Rāja-san, what should we do about this dungeon's defense, or rather, exterminating the pirates…?"

"I can't very well manage it alone. We'll need either some unmanned defensive weapon prepared, or mercenaries."

So says Rāja.

"I'll ask Mint-san whether she can build something. And when the knight order Marie-san requested from the Daikan arrives, we'll put it to use. And as for Rāja-san's weapon…"

"There's the grubby armor and the swords and spears I confiscated from the monkeys of Mt. Takasaki a while back. I wonder if those could be made usable, soaked in detergent and refitted. The Hiki clan's gear, naturally, is burnt to a crisp and unusable."