The Execution-Ground Dungeon (Day 3, Morning)

[Tier-Group 4: Conference Room]

"The dungeon has grown taller again, hasn't it. It's passed eighty thousand shaku now, hasn't it."

The Iruma Daikan, Yoshida Nishinoichinojō, had come riding up from Biwabashi in one of the dungeon's official cars.

"You can tell?"

A drowsy Marie attended to the Daikan.

"Since I know the distance is seventeen ri, calculating the height is a simple matter. Besides, at Kasumigaseki we've set up a post, and by viewing the dungeon from a fixed spot, we've arranged things so we can tell when it grows taller."

"Oh…"

"It is only the natural duty of a Daikan. By this means I can at least surmise that, for the present, we are winning, and report as much to Lord Musashi-no-kami in Fuchū. Though the report will not arrive until late tomorrow morning."

"That takes a fair while, doesn't it."

"With couriers it cannot be helped. Signal fires can convey only the most limited content. Flag-signaling, for all the expense it requires, can likewise convey only so much, so it isn't used in these parts."

The point being that the amount of information one could convey was small. In this region the very word "information" did not exist, however.

"As the report you've already received will have stated, beside Hiratsuka a dungeon was discovered that produces the rotting corpses of the dead of Hell. That is the gist of it. We call them 'zombies.'"

So saying, Marie replayed the recorded footage.

"The dead of Hell, is it. They say that beyond Nasu-Shiobara, further still, lies the Hell Dungeon 'Sesshō-seki.' … Have you no 'moving pictures' in a little more detail?"

"This is the horde of zombies. Most are headless, but a small number have heads."

"Hmm. The headless corpses, by and large, are either simply missing their heads or have been cut across the torso from the side. Had men fallen in battle and had their heads taken, there ought to be more who were run through by spears, and the sword wounds ought mostly to run at a slant from the shoulder. On the other hand, there are corpses that do have heads, are there not. Look closely at these and you'll see they were stabbed through the flank. Most likely crucifixion. In other words, the headless corpses would be cases of death penalty and gibbeting. As for plain beheading, that is to say execution by the sword alone, the family takes the corpse for burial, so there should be no corpse left at the execution ground."

"So the enemy is an execution-ground dungeon, you mean."

"But for the executed dead to number in the tens of thousands is far too many. The public order would have to be wretched indeed. To be sure, there are many cases where false convictions are knowingly tolerated for the sake of keeping order, but even so, the number is far too great."

The number of executions carried out came to perhaps a hundred a year in the Edo of the chaotic final years of the shogunate, for which statistics exist. That is to say, over the roughly two hundred and fifty years of the Edo period, the total is estimated at ten to twenty thousand. Since there were several execution grounds, no single one ought ever to exceed ten thousand. Ought not to, at any rate.

"An execution ground, is it. So in that case, presumably it transmigrates criminals over from another world, which means they're 'Named monsters' that have names from the very start. And that is why they come out of the dungeon."

"That such a dungeon exists is a grave problem. The whole approach to dealing with dungeons is built on the premise that a dungeon's creatures do not come out."

"There is also the problem that, judging by its scale, the number of monsters is simply too large. It can be no more than a hundred meters, no, fifty ken, on a side."

"This dungeon's sphere of influence is preposterously wide as well, but the main body itself would fit within two hundred ken on a side."

"Tier-Group 534 is a shopping mall four hundred meters long, so that's a little over two hundred ken. But its dungeon monsters don't number a hundred. And that dungeon doesn't look as though it has any underground levels."

"The likes of Echizen-ya are practically dungeon affiliates by now too, I'd wager… Well, setting such matters aside, the fact that, by its very function, a dungeon's affiliated creatures come pouring out en masse is a grave problem. Going forward I think it necessary to keep watch for any such dungeons and stamp them out at the earliest opportunity, but…"

"There's no telling in advance, after all. If we find that 'we cannot fold a place into a dungeon's sphere of influence even though no one lives there,' we can surmise a dungeon is present, but whether it is dangerous we cannot know. And all the more so if there happens to be a village between us and the dungeon, for then we cannot extend the sphere of influence, and there is nothing I can do about it."

"In the direction west of Kasumigaseki, you mean. Is that it."

"Even setting that aside, Kasumigaseki itself lies in the shadow of Kawagoe Castle. That is why the highway runs only as far as Biwabashi. Ideally one would investigate the area around the Iruma Magistracy at Kasumigaseki as well, to see whether some strange dungeon lurks there, but I have no means of doing so."