Bullfrog Attack (Day 1, Evening)

[Core Room]

"Personal Secretary, there is a large group to the east, at a distance of about 40,000. The number is probably in the thousands."

In principle the dungeon can see out to about 60 km, but in practice it never works out as the theory says.

"East, 40 km. That's around where the unidentified ruins are. Refugees, or else an enemy. For an enemy, though, they're far too many."

"Their identity is unknown. It seems they intend to make camp at those ruins. I'll send a reconnaissance drone, but I'll keep it from approaching too closely."

"Mint, we really ought to investigate those ruins properly one of these days. But it's a two-day trip each way."

"Could give a camera to an adventurer and have them scout it. Then again, there's the question of whether an adventurer can even work a camera."

Mint did not say, "Those guys are idiots." Still, the Asura aren't really all that much smarter than humans.

[Tier-Group 4, First-Floor Reception Room]

Since Marie was not well versed in the affairs of this region, she consulted the Knight Commander. The Knight Commander had also come from afar, but he was a native of this world, and having lived in Tama and Iruma, he knew the geography to some degree.

"Harima-no-suke-dono, to the east, the quarter of the Hare, at a distance of ten ri, there is a group several thousand strong. If it is an enemy, an armed band of refugees or the like, there is a chance of an attack in two or three days."

"Ho. Ordinarily we'd have no hope of winning. But you'll hole up using those 'dungeon structures,' won't you. There's no breaking those, however one tries. Only, it would be a nuisance to have the fields trampled."

"No, I'm thinking of intercepting them outside the fields. I do intend to use the dungeon structures as well, of course. So, what sort of towns lie in the direction of the Hare from here?"

"The Hare, eh. That way it's complete wilderness past the border with Sō, twenty or thirty ri from here. There's a rumor of a village of fish-folk beyond that, but at those numbers they'll have come from farther still. Can you make out their banners?"

"No, we're still confirming."

"Shall we request reinforcements from the Iruma magistracy?"

"No. With only a single horse, we can't very well send out a courier, and besides, even if we asked now it wouldn't arrive in time. It's the Daikan-dono's own fault for not bringing horses, so a report after the fact will do. If the enemy army has horses, then this time, for certain, we'll have to take one alive."

[Core Room]

Rāja came back from riding practice.

"Rāja, returning! Word is there's an enemy attack of some kind."

"Mint's self-destruct drone is on its way. It should arrive soon."

A feed came in from the drone.

"Director, this won't be a matter of two or three thousand. To count them accurately we'd need a birdwatcher."

"That's something this dungeon can't summon."

If there were some Shiso-family plant with the attribute of counting birds, it could presumably be summoned as a Shiso (Asura). But there isn't.

"Mint, can't you do image analysis on the computer or something?"

"I'll give it a try, but I wonder if it'll pick them up properly. I expect it'll only come out rough."

Mint ran the image through the computer.

"Let's see. By rough estimate, foot-soldiers, ashigaru, and footmen come to 3,000; noncombatants (menservants, maids, courtesans, merchants, and so on) about 2,000; and a baggage train hauling handcarts, about 5,000. Some 10,000 in all. No artillery, it appears. And, bad news for the Personal Secretary, but from the looks of it there are no horses. Horse-beastfolk I can't tell about."

Foot-soldiers (kachi): samurai who fight on foot. Mounted-rank samurai can't be distinguished either, since there are no horses, at this image resolution.

Ashigaru: treated sometimes as low-ranking samurai, sometimes as warrior-house servants, depending. They wage group combat with spears, firearms, and the like.

Footmen (chūgen): warrior-house servants, not samurai. On the battlefield they carry a single sword. In peacetime they basically do odd jobs. There are roughly as many of them as there are samurai.

Menservants (genin): warrior-house servants. Noncombatants. Also called "small folk." There are roughly as many of them as there are samurai.

"Mint-san, doesn't look like refugees. Even so, ten thousand. That's more than five times our total population."

"The warriors number five hundred to a thousand, I'd say. Master-san, figuring one kilogram of food and three liters of water per person per day, ten thousand people means forty tons. A handcart needs two laborers for every 150 to 200 kilograms it carries, so transportable supplies come to an estimated 500 tons. If half of that is food, that's six days; if two-thirds, eight days. Counting on the ashigaru and below to carry a little themselves, the food supply is ten days' worth at most."

Rāja roughly reckoned their capacity to sustain a campaign.

"Ten days, huh."

"They've likely factored in the march here, the siege, and the return trip, but I think it'll be cutting it close."

"With all those handcarts, it's only that much?"

On the screen were handcarts numbering well over a thousand.

"If they make heavy use of firearms and artillery, then resupply, logistics you'd call it, gets harder still. Even if they had oxen and horses, those drink like oxen and eat like horses, so in terms of supplies it's not very efficient."

"The banner of what looks to be the main camp is a frog, a toad specifically."

Mint continued the report.

"The French army?"

France doesn't call itself a frog.

"A toad means it's the Hiki again, probably. But the Hiki are to the northwest. Would they really swing all the way around from the east?"

[Tier-Group 4, First-Floor Reception Room]

Marie and the Knight Commander conferred once more.

"A toad does indeed mean the Hiki, but the Hiki and the bullfrog are the same kind of creature, and judging by the numbers, this is most likely the Tsukuba. Tsukuba lies even farther than Sō, some fifty ri off. At fifty ri, with a road it's five days; with a great host and no lodgings along the way, ten days or so. Three thousand men would mean a military levy equivalent to a hundred to a hundred fifty thousand koku, which is far too much, so I suspect a great many are mercenaries or adventurers. There's surely a supply base somewhere along the route, likely near the border, but this is a campaign on no small scale."

In the otherworld, the Hiki district is 60,000 koku, but this world is desert, so it isn't nearly that. As for the Adachi district, it's 150,000 koku in the otherworld, yet at present comes to perhaps a thousand or two thousand koku. Hitachi is a million koku, but in this world is thought to be a tenth or a fifth of that.

"Against that, our forces are one mounted, twenty on foot?"

"Six mounted, fifteen on foot. Secretary-General-dono, even without a horse, this one is of mounted rank. And the enemy has no cavalry. Besides, for a siege, the footmen at least can be raised from among the residents, never mind the ashigaru."

"… It may simply be that the enemy has no horses either."

"Also, since the bullfrog and the Hiki are of a kind, the Hiki may be on the move as well. It would be dangerous to stray too far from the castle."

[Core Room]

"The enemy is the Tsukuba district. It seems other districts and local magnates, along with great numbers of mercenaries and adventurers, have joined as well; effective fighting strength is around 3,000. They'll reach us in another two days, so we'll make our preparations until then."

"Marie, strictly a repulse, then?"

Rāja asked.

"We repulse them. We can hardly abandon the dungeon and flee at this late stage."

"So you've given up at last on 'a poor nation with a weak army.' If that's decided, then there's nothing for it but to press onward. Down the Asura's road of 'a rich nation with a strong army.'"

Being Asura, they were fated for this from the very start.

"Rāja-san, all the same, is there even any value in mobilizing 3,000 men to attack this dungeon?"

"Even if they've water and food enough for everyone to make it home, there won't be much margin, so they likely mean to occupy the place and stay. Here there is water, and they could harass the highway linking Tama, Iruma, and Hiki. The main objective is probably the water. This dungeon supplies it quite lavishly, so they must think we've water to spare."

"Master, this is outright war. Whether the whole country's behind it, or it's the headstrong move of a local lord, or there's simply no central government to begin with, I couldn't say. Rāja, I don't know what country this world's Tsukuba belongs to."

"For now, I take it to be Hitachi. How it's called over here I can't say. The countries to the east have poor soil, where only soybeans will grow, and the people are said to eat nothing but rotten boiled beans."

That's an exaggeration. They have tofu, miso, and soy sauce too. Though soy sauce is more famous in the province of Sō.

"Isn't that just a case of the soil lacking nitrogen, so only beans will grow? We could one day gouge them on the price of fertilizer, perhaps, but the soil's dead, so fertilizer doesn't take well there. Well, a country as crude as this one, where tubers are the staple, is in no position to talk."

"Master, their encampment tomorrow will probably be around here, and by late afternoon the day after, they'll have come this far."

Rāja pointed at the map. It was still a crude, inaccurate, hand-drawn thing, but better than nothing.

"Marie-san, General Rāja, I'll leave the method of repelling them to you. If you can manage it, I'd like the damage to the residents and the fields kept to a minimum."