Cleaning Up (Day 10, Late Morning) (Reference Map Included)

[Tier-Group 3, 10th-Floor Reception Room]

"Now then, Director-dono, as an urgent matter: regarding the dungeon's sphere of influence, which has sprawled out wholly unchecked, we will need envoys dispatched to the neighboring countries to explain ourselves and offer apologies."

"Can a sphere of influence be recognized at a glance?"

"No. What the dungeon swallowed was unused land, so they likely won't notice it right away. But there was the disturbance of a wave of blue light surging right up to the edges of their towns."

"Master-dono, nothing will come of it immediately, I should think, but if we mishandle the response, a major diplomatic problem looms."

"A major problem, or, at worst, war, isn't it? Can we even wage war without Marie-san?"

"War would be difficult, I believe. Still, for better or worse, the sphere of influence has spread to within reach of Fuchū in Musashi, Kōnodai in Sō, and Sōja in Ke. So if we extend a road to the edge of the sphere, all three become day-trip distance.

That said, the route toward Fuchū would, on a straight line, mean crossing over Minuma by way of an enormous bridge, so converting it into an ordinary highway later would be difficult."

If the Library-City Dungeon had a fighting force, it could mount surprise assaults on each country's capital, but of course it had no such thing. A dungeon is strong on defense but poor at campaigning abroad.

"For envoys, then, by the usual assignments: Scarlet to Musashi, Kinran to Sō, Rāja to Ke?"

"Yes. And, should it become necessary, I'll arrange for Anne to head to Oda Castle in the east, and Farigole to Seki Castle, Yūki Castle, and Utsunomiya Castle in the northeast. But we can't leave the dungeon shorthanded, so those will be for a later date."

"Ah, see to it. Eventually we'll have to settle not the sphere of influence but the political borders, too. We can't very well leave it vague, with a dried-up riverbed standing in for the line."

"Next: it appears the sphere of influence has come into contact with several pre-existing dungeons. I doubt any of them is as troublesome and peculiar as the Kozukappara Execution Ground Dungeon, but caution is warranted."

"Might it be better to strike first and dig them out?"

"Even Nakayama Racecourse, which is small among the confirmed dungeons, is about one kilometer square, so dropping it into a pit would be difficult. As for Tanzawa Hills, the forested portion may not be that wide, but the sphere of influence is probably more than a hundred kilometers across."

"Now there's a dungeon I've heard of. So we've made contact with the Nakayama Racecourse Dungeon. Couldn't we hold a Nakayama Grand Prix one of these days?"

"Horse racing? We don't have enough horses."

"Sapien-sensei, gather up Horse-Heads, horse-legs, whatever you like, and you'll have the numbers."

"The Nakayama Grand Prix is, if I recall, held at year's end. Even if we were to attempt it, we've already entered winter this year, so there's no making it in time. And since the grounds have been turned over to farmland, we'd need to grow the turf besides."

"As for Tanzawa Hills, however, it is a precious timber-producing dungeon, so running a road up to the dungeon boundary, setting up an inn, hiring adventurers, and sending them in is one option. Better to carry it out after the aide-de-camp scribe-dono has recovered, though."

"Last: the matter of how to treat acts of piracy within the expanded sphere of influence. Even if it falls inside the sphere, may we go about subjugating pirates who are within another country's territory as we please?"

"Pirates get the death penalty, so string them up. Good enough! And besides, international law holds that any country may crack down on pirates."

Of course, even in another world, you cannot go hunting pirates in another nation's territorial waters, but the Master did not know that much. Incidentally, though they styled themselves pirates, in truth they were grubby little mountain bandits.

And so the Library-City Dungeon's first-ever dungeon-versus-dungeon war, the battle against the Zombie Dungeon, also known as the Kozukappara Execution Ground Dungeon, came to an end. Yet with Marie absent, the aftermath cleanup and the analysis of events both ended up done by halves.