Charred Frog

※A mass slaughter takes place. Reader discretion is advised.

[Amanuma] East Foot of the Hills, Near Side of the Valley

Before dawn, with no night raid at all, the bivouac had gone completely slack. Suddenly, the plateau trembled lightly.

"An earthquake? One of the keystones at Kashima or Katori must have slipped."

The instant after someone said that, the ground caved in and the bivouac collapsed into it. Many were injured, dashed against the earth. Those who landed badly and died were, if anything, the lucky ones.

"My lord! An earthquake!"

"There was no vertical jolt. It's close by… At a time like this. That wall is a dungeon, so an earthquake won't bring it down. If I'd known it would come to this, I should have paid no mind to what the carpenters or the peddlers said and sentenced those catfish to the stewpot."

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, Tsukuba Naiyaku-no-jō, being fat, came through unhurt. When an earthquake's vertical jolt comes, you count slowly, and the count until the horizontal shaking arrives gives the distance to where the quake struck. Count to five, say, and it's five ri away. A sudden, violent shaking means the quake struck very close at hand.

"Don't panic. Calm yourselves. It's only an earthquake."

But at the same moment, over a hundred rockets came raining down. Close as the range was, they were unguided, so most flew off in entirely the wrong direction, yet more than ten came down and burst into flame. With so much that would burn, the camp curtains, the straw mats, the rice bales, the gunpowder of the matchlocks, the pit trap was turned in an instant into a hell.

"So the earthquake was a trap as well. They went this far? This Shokichō, or whatever, pirate though he is, has done splendidly."

Calmly, Naiyaku-no-jō cut open his belly. There was no one to deliver the finishing stroke, but the flames had already caught the newspapers and books and fertilizer underground, and in no time the fire devoured everything. What his death poem had been, no one knows.

Meanwhile, the gate opened and a cavalry unit sortied to mop up. Cavalry, though there was but a single rider.

"Two enemies fleeing the camp. Rāja, pursuit, please."

Even so, there were those who got away. From atop the gate, Marie gave the order to pursue. The knight order stood watch before the gate, but no others fled.

"Knight order, fall back inside the gate!"

The flames had grown stronger, so Marie called out through a loudspeaker and pulled the knight order back.

[Higashimachi] East Side of the Dungeon, Foot of the Hills

"Secretary-General-sama, this is…"

Okada Tarōzaemon stood atop the wall, staring dumbstruck at the enemy main camp as it blazed, or rather burst into one explosion after another.

"Sing though it may, tonight it's grilled fowl, the little cuckoo."

Marie, going for something Nobunaga-esque and cool, missing the mark.

"Grilled fowl even if it sings, you say?"

"Tarōzaemon-san, if you'd rather not watch, you're welcome to come down off the wall."

Lots of people are fond of grilled chicken and beer, aren't they. Being an Asura, I'm fine even without eating grilled chicken, though. That line Marie kept to herself, and called out to Tarōzaemon instead. Even Marie isn't quite a psychopath.

"No, this one will fulfill his duties as overseer properly. Pay it no mind. Still, what a terrible sight."

"A small-scale firestorm, I suppose you might call it."

"All the same, it's not a pleasant thing to see. This is surely the best way, to be sure."

So said Kishi Harima-no-suke at the gate.

"The Secretary-General-dono is a fearsome lady indeed."