The Magistrate Comes Express

[Kamikochō] West Gate

The express doesn't stop at the otherworld's Daikanyama, but the Iruma Daikan came express on horseback to the Library-City Dungeon.

"Oho, a full circumvallation, is it. So then, Secretary-General-dono, was it with this that you repelled the host of Tsukuba Naiyaku-no-jō-dono?"

In a region with little beyond bows and arrows and matchlocks, a rampart a full hundred shaku high is no common sight.

"Daikan-dono, they were numerous, a formidable foe. In the end it fell to me to go around splitting the Pretas' skulls."

Marie came out to meet him before the gate.

"What a waste. Pretas are deft with their hands, so taken alive they can be put to work in a mine dungeon, or set to making weapons."

"I've no wish to keep Pretas. So, what brings you today? Are you giving us that horse, perhaps?"

"Business or no business, any Daikan who wouldn't so much as come and confirm it when a ladder to heaven like this suddenly appears ought to slit his belly. And no, the horse I'll not part with."

His work is hectic, the sweets the merchants slip him have no koban hidden at the bottom, and if his crimes are found out it's seppuku. In truth, corrupt magistrates are few. Since it's humans doing the doing, regrettably the number is not zero, but.

"This is the result of wiping out the enemy host that came from Tsukuba in the east and the swarm of Pretas, probably out of the Land of Ke, in the northwest, then pouring every last bit of that dungeon energy, that is, of that power, into summoning and expansion. It stands nearly fifty thousand shaku, so one can see a hundred ri into the distance."

"If you can see that far, you'll have no need of a watchtower either. And the Pretas were probably not from Ke, but from somewhere farther still, Shina or Kō. Kō is a poor land as far as agriculture goes, riddled with endemic disease, but it's rich in mountain produce, a country where Pretas thrive."

"What an unpleasant country. As for lookout, there's a device called a wireless set, with which we can speak to this dungeon from Iruma. There are problems of upkeep and charging, but if those can be solved, shall I lend you one?"

"They say excess power is the ruin of a man. I cannot decide such a thing lightly."

[Atop the West Gate]

"Hm, so at last you'll set to making paddies in earnest."

"It's right at the edge as far as timing goes, and we can't expect much yield, but we should just manage to make it in time."

"That's something to look forward to. So, what was it you wished to discuss? A Daikan's authority is by no means great, so what I can do is limited, but I'll hear you out."

"It concerns the forms of land tenure and the family system in this region. We must decide before long how land is to be handled within this dungeon."

Marie confirmed with the Daikan the broad outlines of the region's social institutions.

"So once your preparations are ready, you'll begin recruiting settlers in earnest, is that it."

"That's how it'll go. If they all come at once we'll be short of food, so three months from now, when the edamame and the like can be harvested, we'll bring in migrants for the rice harvest, then plant wheat, and at next spring's wheat harvest we'll bring in migrants for the rice transplanting. The numbers to match the harvest situation. Of course, if they bring their own provisions, we can move the schedule up."

"Hmm, even if you say bring their own provisions, there's no leeway to make them carry any. Now then, supposing you expanded the dungeon's sphere of influence to its maximum, about how much food production might become possible?"

"In the long term, the Million-Chōbu Reclamation Plan, that is. Strictly a long-range plan, mind you, and I haven't decided the management form, whether to make it a sovkhoz… no, a collective farm, or the old kubunden allotment system. As things stand the water's plainly insufficient, so figuring conservatively for now, enough for about a hundred thousand people, I'd say."

Empress Genshō's failure was because hers was a world with no dungeon.

"A hundred thousand… if there's that much latent capacity, it might rather be a tactic to subjugate a few food-producing dungeons and haul the food in. We'd have to ask leave of Fuchū, naturally. That said, this country has no dungeons worth the name. There are limestone-producing and bat-producing dungeons aplenty off to the west, but…"

Most of them aren't dungeons at all, just plain limestone caverns.

[Inn]

"Well now, well now, my lord magistrate."

"If it isn't Echizen-ya. What business brings you here this time?"

"I've brought cedar saplings for the Comrade Secretary-General. In the distant future they'll yield timber as well. And these, my lord, are konpeitō mined from a sugar mine. I do hope they're to your lordship's liking."

A mine from which konpeitō can be dug is, as a matter of course, a dungeon.

"Echizen-ya, you're a wicked one, you are."

"Oh no, no, nowhere near so wicked as your lordship."

"This too is what they call the beauty of form. The whole magistracy will be delighted. Now then, this dungeon has grown so tall it can be seen not just from Iruma but from Fuchū, and even from the neighboring countries. From here on it's Fuchū's affair, but envoys must be sent to Ke and Sō so no needless quarrels break out."

"Will an Adachi Daikan be appointed, do you think?"

"Excess power is the ruin of a man. As one can see from the affair of Tsukuba Naiyaku-no-jō-dono, this dungeon can defend itself without Fuchū's protection. Send some half-baked Daikan and he'll only be scorched by the envy of the neighboring countries."

"A war with Ke or Sō would be a great trouble."

"Tomorrow I'll return to Iruma for the time being. Instructions from Fuchū should arrive before long."