Rebuilding Hiratsuka

[Heta Village]

Because Hiratsuka had been ravaged into ruin by the zombies, the Toshima Daikan, Nakazato Minbu-no-tairoku, was staying in Heta Village ("Toda" written, but read "Heta").

"Kinran-dono, so the Library-City Dungeon will see to rebuilding Hiratsuka up to a point. Is that the gist of it?"

"Well, accident or no, we did go and swallow it into the dungeon's sphere of influence, so we've gotta look after the dungeon-side of things, y'know? Laying roads, putting up a building or two."

"You have my thanks."

"That said, politically it's still Musashi, so we can't go collecting land tax off it. Which means no political support from us. And since Hiratsuka stays part of Musashi, you'll still be needing a checkpoint after all."

"Just so."

"First off, the highway. It's been decided we'll extend it as far as Kōnodai in Sō. And since the Nameless Bridge has vanished, while we're at it the highway'll run elevated, cut off from Musashi, passing straight on through, with checkpoints set just short of Hiratsuka and Kōnodai. As for the roads running west to Fuchū and south to Hatanodai from Hiratsuka, we'll build only the stretches inside the dungeon's sphere of influence, but the managing's all yours."

"Maintaining public order is the Daikan's responsibility to begin with."

"If something's plainly a pirate, the dungeon's functions can do away with it, but if we go and bury some traveler by mistake, then it's us who are the pirates, y'know. There's not all that much a dungeon can do."

"Next, the town of Hiratsuka. We'll connect it to the elevated highway and build a travelers' inn and a checkpoint. That part's the dungeon's jurisdiction. Then on the ground we'll summon several buildings fit for use as a magistracy office or housing, the sort of thing 'elementary schools' you can see over there. We'd like you to provide the furniture and such on your end."

There is nothing like it in this world, but it was something on the order of an expressway with service areas and interchanges.

"Timber is precious, so I can't ask for that much."

"We can sell you bookshelves, desks, and chairs, if you like. How about it?"

When library furnishings of wood are summoned, there is a constraint that they come out as teak. This is presumably because teak belongs to the Perilla family.

"Regrettably, the funds fall short."

"There's a way to lend against the harvest as collateral, but to collect on it the harvest has to grow first, or it's no use, and that turns into setting up fields outside the dungeon and supplying water, politically speaking, and that brings up the land-tax question too, so without Marie-han signing off it'll be hard."

"The Iruma Daikan-dono would likely ask for it, I imagine, but Hiratsuka cannot go so far as to take on debt."

"Kasumigaseki's completely outside the dungeon, so the dungeon's functions can't be used there. Making fields or waterways is difficult. Farm tools, too, use dungeon-structure parts these days, so outside the dungeon they won't work."

"Even so, those headless dead were a menace. Might there be others of that kind about?"

"Even if there are, Hiratsuka should be safe now. But I can't go so far as to swear there aren't others. Normally a dungeon's monsters don't come out into the open, mind you."

Even a Named monster cannot, naturally, come out if it can't withstand the laws of physics, as with a giant dragon or a human-sized ant.