The Limits of Modern Weaponry

[Tier-Group 3 Rooftop Garden]

"Marie-san, this dungeon's level of technology was the 21st century, right? And the surroundings are the Edo period. Without asking the Daikan for a knight order, couldn't we deal with the pirates just by the gap in technical power?"

"Master, modern weaponry can only shine when it's backed by the manufacturing technology to support it."

"Books are full of handy machines, complete with photographs even, and yet you can't get your hands on them. That's the problem, isn't it."

The Dungeon Master grumbled.

"As a rule, all we can summon are library fixtures, or books and magazines and their appendices, you see. One fatal problem is that we have no 'machine tools.' That is, machines that make machines."

"So we have only the knowledge from books, and no way to make it real. Is that it."

"With machine tools, you could feed in blueprints and materials, produce the parts, and assemble those into a machine. But to climb from our current handicraft level up to machine tools would require an overwhelming number of process steps, and I don't know the detailed procedures myself, either."

"It'd be nice if there were a factory lying around somewhere."

"If we could summon a practical-training workshop, or a botanical garden, as a derivative of a university library, the latter being on the agriculture side, we'd solve everything in one stroke, but…"

"On top of a farm dungeon, subjugate a factory dungeon too? Would one really turn up that conveniently?"

"We don't even know what kinds of dungeons exist, or where, so."

"It'd be nice to have a reconnaissance satellite."

"Forget satellites. Even aerial reconnaissance has its limits. True, in the case of this dungeon, with its obviously artificial tower and the geometric road network and farmland spreading around it, anyone could tell something is plainly off. But if a dungeon were burrowed into a cave or the like, you wouldn't be able to tell from the air."

"And if we did doggedly build machine tools ourselves?"

"The number of process steps is large, and we'd need a great many skilled craftsmen. Mint alone couldn't possibly manage it all."

"A craftsman takes decades to become skilled, doesn't he."

"I dislike it very much, but there's also the method of keeping Pretas, who are more dexterous with their hands than Asura or humans. Though even that would come with no shortage of problems."

"Pretas, eh. They were the mineral kingdom of the Six Realms."

"A Preta's feed is high-purity alcohol or ether, so the Master's beer is nowhere near enough. As for liquor, it seems to need to be roughly 40 degrees or higher."

"Siberia, then."

"Yes. In Siberia they say: -30°C is not cold, 30°C is not hot, 30 km is not a distance, and 30 degrees is not liquor. And Russian liquor is 40 degrees. Whether this world has a Russia is unknown, though."

[Core Room]

"So, that's the gist of the discussion, Mint-san. Tanks and fighter jets and so on really are impossible, I suppose?"

"Director, to put it plainly, impossible. That kind of weaponry takes specialized skills to operate and to maintain. And the fact that General Rāja-dono has only the naginata and horsemanship, that is, military skills any civilian could pick up, leads me to suspect this dungeon may not be able to summon military personnel at all."

"So forget manufacturing them, we can't even operate them."

"Forget tanks, even an automobile is useless so long as there are no 'roads.' A 'technical,' something like a modified rough-terrain pickup truck, looks like it could run without roads, but since we can neither maintain nor recharge it, it'd be of no use. And on top of that, mounted weapons such as machine guns are hard to come by."

"Is there no way to make use of our technological superiority?"

"In the end, the things that could be of some use are information and communications gear, radios and reconnaissance drones, plus gunpowder repurposed from fertilizer, about that much. For that level, even without a full-fledged factory, a partwork-encyclopedia 3D printer and a desktop NC lathe could assemble a very small number of them."

"Then, first, I'd like you to look into that area."