The Six-Party Meeting: The Way a Dungeon Should Be

[Tier-Group 3, First-Floor Hall]

Marie had deliberately invited the envoys into Tier-Group 3, the very nerve center of the dungeon. Even though they called it the "first floor," it stood in the stratosphere, fifteen kilometers up. And of course, by the dungeon's unique law, the Core Room and the like were off-limits to outsiders, so there was no danger of the dungeon being conquered.

"I shall now open the Six-Party Meeting. I am the Secretary-General of the Library-City Dungeon, Director of Books of the Shiso. In the Dungeon Master's stead, I serve as our representative in external affairs."

Because the Dungeon Master, partly for reasons of safety, never appeared in public, Marie, being a Named monster who in the very worst case could be revived even if killed, served as the representative for outside dealings. That said, since Marie's abilities were needlessly high, her revival would require an enormous amount of dungeon energy. And, of course, her court rank was self-styled.

The administrative apparatus was already taking shape ahead of the rest. As for a legislature, the plan was to use the movie theater on the first floor of Tier-Group 4 as its chamber, but no election had been held, so it did not yet exist. The courts, too, had yet to be established.

"Yoshida Nishinoichinojō, Daikan of Iruma, in the Land of Musashi. I serve as magistrate here, just next door to this Adachi."

"Okamoto Shuyu-no-kami, presenter of the Land of Sō. I come as envoy of Kazusa-no-suke-sama."

A greasy-looking man, just as his name implied.

"I am Takahashi Tsushima-no-kami, District Governor of Gunma, in the Land of Ke."

A tanuki-beastfolk. A large tanuki in women's clothing. As they were indoors, she wore no sedge hat or the like, just a little leaf perched atop her head.

"This humble monk is Daizen-no-suke Nyūdō Shōtō, tea-monk of Sumō."

"I am Oda Ukyō-no-suke, castle-lord of Oda. Young and unseasoned though I am, I count it the highest honor to be granted a seat among you, even at the foot of the table."

"Awa hasn't come, I see,"

said Okamoto Shuyu-no-kami.

"Awa is farther off than Ke, so they likely can't even see this tower from there, and won't be able to send an envoy in time,"

said Takahashi Tsushima-no-kami, the tanuki-beastfolk.

"The only one who saw this coming ahead of time was probably Sumō-no-kami-dono. That's one auntie you don't want to make an enemy of. Awa can hop about flustered, going 'awa-awa' and dancing the Awa dance later, but by then it'll be too late."

He ought to have meant Awa the province, yet there seemed to be a touch of that other Awa, the one with the famous dance, mixed in as well.

"For today, while informing you all of the way this dungeon will operate from here on, I also wish to consult with you on how to go about it."

"Hm."

"First, you are all aware, I believe, that a dungeon is sustained and made to grow by human emotion. And, save for natural-cavern types and a few others, a dungeon requires human lives to be maintained over the long term."

"You mean it needs sacrifices. I believe you called it the head of John, was it?"

said the Iruma Daikan. Of course, the Daikan had no idea who John was.

"The manner of death is purely a matter of efficiency. So long as a certain number of deaths occur, those who die of old age pose no problem at all. It is quite enough to have, within the dungeon's sphere of influence, even a single town that caters to adventurers."

"There are towns like that. Now and again they get wiped out by monsters that come spilling out, mind you."

"Within a dungeon's sphere of influence such things may happen, but this dungeon has no monsters of that sort. And the product of this dungeon is books, for which there is little demand in this world. They are paper, so they can serve as fuel, but that is not an efficient use of them."

"The literacy rate is low, after all. The people of Ke especially, most of them can write little more than their own names."

So said Tsushima-no-kami of the Land of Ke.

"Fortunately, this dungeon can supply water and electric power (well, something to stand in for fire) from the World Core, and the summoning of fertilizer is possible. So I have resolved to develop large-scale farmland within the dungeon's sphere of influence and settle many people there, and thereby make the dungeon prosper."

"A water-attribute dungeon is a strong thing in the desert. So long as it isn't salt water. There's a record that, long ago, a lord of the realm of Sō got carried away (chōshi ni notte) and tried drawing an irrigation channel from a water-attribute dungeon to develop farmland, but it was salt water, and it ended in utter failure."

In writing, "chōshi ni notte" (got carried away) would have been spelled with the characters for Chōshi, the seaside town, which made for a fine little pun. But since this was a conversation and not a written text, no one, naturally, caught it, and it passed by unremarked.

"And so, you make farmland and grant the people a life of contentment, with food, clothing, and shelter, and emotions richly nourished. Is that it? Those garments you wear, Director of Books-sama, are nothing I've ever seen the like of. Would such things, too, be a product?"

said the tanuki. In this world, suits were, naturally, not common.

"There is the matter of sizing, and as for clothing, I have no particular plans to sell it. But if it is something you truly desire, it should be possible to prepare some."

"Then I shall take some as a souvenir. In short, this dungeon's aim is to bring peace and ease to the people. That's the gist of it."

"Yes. To put it another way: 'to realize a life of health and abundance, in both material and spiritual terms.' That is this dungeon's 'way of being.'"

"It's not a bad thing for a ruler to set his heart on, true enough, but it's a hard road. Disasters strike, pirates spring up,"

said Okamoto Shuyu-no-kami.

"Every country says, with its mouth, that it acts for the people's sake. But there's hardly a one who can actually do it,"

said Nyūdō Daizen-no-suke, blunt and without a shred of varnish.

"That is precisely where we make the fullest possible use of the dungeon's power."