Horizon:Volume 9B Chapter 32
Chapter 32: Man of Character in the Conversation[edit]
Do not let this anger me
Why do I need to
Tell myself that?
Point Allocation (Past Mistakes)
●
Neshinbara decided he would respond to Naruze’s reaction like an adult. He needed to remain calm in all things. Because it made him look cool. For example…
“Fine, I guess we can hear you out.”
He couldn’t let that anger him. Because of my past mistakes! Yes, if I think of it as having a checkered past, it actually makes me look good. Heh heh. Next time someone asks “Why does everyone use you as the butt of their jo- I mean, why do they so cruelly bully you?”, I can tell them “I did something unforgivable to them in the past…” How I should handle the “…” at the end is the real question!
“Hey, Neshinbara, why are you staring off into the distance like that? We don’t have all night.”
“Takarazuka Honda-kun, have you never heard of subtlety before!?”
He decided to leave this up to the rabble’s imagination.
“Now, let’s begin something new.”
He struck a pose while opening a sign frame. He thrust his right hand out front with the index finger raised as a pose of concentration. He could control everyone’s gazes with that finger. Hey, why are none of you looking this way?
Forget it. “Heh,” he laughed quietly.
“I have further cracked the code we were trying to solve. And I can make a partial interpretation of its contents.”
So…
“Let’s enjoy some light puzzle-solving before we set off for Honnouji.”
●
“Now, allow me to explain.”
The library was a cramped, ceiling-less space filled with bookcases that rose as high as the gassho-style beams. There was a desk below, but it too was piled high with books. There were two ladders used to reach the higher shelves.
The speaker, Shakespeare, sat on a board spanning the space between the ladders.
“That coded text had a second layer of coding.”
“H-hey, wait! This is my time to shine!”
“Don’t expect an author to stay silent after you ask for her help.”
The divine transmission sign frame showed their 4th Special Duty Officer saying “they’re at it again”, so Shakespeare smiled and spoke.
“It’s my time to shine.”
●
Art-Ga: “Oh, now we’re talking! He dragged someone important into this one!”
Vice President: “She really is important, so try not to cause any international incidents!”
Scarred: “Yes, we want to avoid any careless mistakes. Don’t we, Master Tenzou?”
Gold Mar: “Um, uh, who should I make fun of first?”
Asama: “For now, I have approved Shakespeare-san’s divine transmission settings.”
Novice: “Wait! Why is no one listening to what I have to say!?”
Worshiper: “That question is going to come back to bite you five times over, so I’d just stay silent if I were you.”
●
Shakespeare saw the message confirming she had divine transmission approval from their Asama Shrine Representative.
So she linked her text description system to their divine chat.
Four Eyes: “I will keep the explanation simple.”
She had honestly only now gotten her head around it, so she wasn’t sure how much explanation this would require.
A longer explanation would be more lyrical. A shorter one would be more literal. But in text, a lyrical explanation would be shorter and a literal one longer.
And the overall length was determined by the story, not the author. Once the author wrote it down, it was a processed product. And this was not a story she had written.
…I need to be cautious but daring.
Four Eyes: “First, let’s review the overall text.”
Risototooukowareta
Nagayoshinozu(tsu/su)gaigatadashii
Zu(tsu/su)kiiinofu(bu)kiwoiwaoniosame
Nazu(tsu/su)owarikotamanizu(tsu/su)gaiwoosameyo
Futarinoseijiyohaizu(tsu/su)ko
Four Eyes: “You can compare the original numbers with the Song of Passage correspondence chart for yourselves. Now, there are two problem passages that we couldn’t read.”
Risototooukowareta
Zukiiinofuki
Four Eyes: “Those are the two. So does anyone here know how to read or interpret these?”
Smoking Girl: “Is it related to the base of the numbers?”
Me: “Their base? What’s that mean?”
Horizey: “Shakey-samaaaaa!”
You were already talking to me! thought Shakespeare, but that helped make it unexpected.
Four Eyes: “The base of a number determines when you add a new digit while counting.”
●
Me: “Eh? I still don’t get it.”
Horizey: “You don’t, Toori-sama? When Masazumi-sama tells a joke, it hits her target with a destructive force equivalent to five military divisions. That means 1 Masazumi joke = 5 divisions. Now, a question: if 10 Masazumi jokes were to hit someone, they would be completely obliterated, but that would be politically inadvisable. The end.”
Gold Mar: “Huh? Wait, wasn’t there supposed to be a question?”
Flat Vassal: “The Vicereine has levelled up.”
Nagaya-Stable: “If you will permit me to join this conversation, take time as an example. Once you have 60 ‘minutes’, you go up one ‘hour’. And once you have 24 hours, you go up one ‘day’. The amount needed to increase the next digit is known as the base of the number. Minutes are base 60. Hours are base 24. And days are base 365.”
Vice President: “That was a great explanation, Ookubo. Good job.”
Nataya-Stable “I just didn’t want you wasting any more of the time I bought you!”
Scarred: “Um, then does the base of the numbers help us read those two passages?”
●
Hm, thought Shakespeare.
That response came from the English princess. The Testament depicted that girl as the archenemy of the Fairy Queen who Shakespeare had sworn allegiance to.
The succession issue was famous enough she had even joked about it in her comedies, but most of it had already been resolved. Now that girl was no more than someone asking to be taught.
…That’s probably how she sees it too.
She was always like that, Shakespeare belatedly realized.
In that case, that girl was a family member to her friend the Fairy Queen. She was part of England’s foundation.
Four Eyes: “Testament, Princess Mary. You are correct.”
So Shakespeare placed a hand on her chest and nodded. She was bad at these dramatic movements. Whenever she did them, she worried it came off as a joke.
But the princess smiled and asked another question.
Scarred: “I am honored. So what is the trick?”
Four Eyes: “You could call it ‘carrying the one’. Most character-to-character correspondence codes do not give the same character twice, but this is a number code. So if both versions of a character are used back to back, I believe we are meant to ‘carry the one’. Like this…”
She displayed it.
She placed the numbers and the Song of Passage correspondence table next to each other and then read from them.
Four Eyes: “Risototo was originally 12-46-57-68. But with ‘to’ and ‘to’ right next to each other, we need to ‘carry the one’ to the left and turn the 57 into a 58. That gives us…”
By checking the Song of Passage correspondence table and subtracting 9, she found…
Four Eyes: “An ‘o’. Place that in and it becomes fairly readable.”
It read…
Asama: “Risootooukowareta?”
●
Uqui: “The Resort King has broken!”
Laborer: “Sounds like someone’s rubbing it in!”
Flat Vassal: “No fair! You mean it isn’t about the Risotto King!? Where did my food paradise go!?”
Bell: “Adele…calm down…calm down.”
●
Shakespeare waited for 15 seconds with no response from them.
Until finally…
Horizey: “Apologizes, Long-Eared Glasses-sama. Am I correct in interpreting this as an invitation to a resort island?”
Four Eyes: “Are you saying it should be read as ‘rizooto tou ni kowareta’?”
Me: “Yesssss! Did you see that!? The English glasses girl read it the same way I did! Take that, Tenzou! You too, Seijun! Shows what you know thinking this one was hard.”
Another 15 seconds with no response. Until finally…
Horizey: “Apologies. Am I correct in interpreting it to read ‘the ideal and the king have broken’?”
Finally, a reasonable interpretation. The back-to-back 15-second pauses were concerning, but…
Four Eyes: “Testament. And if the rule I explained applies, then ‘zukii’ would be ‘zukitai’ or ‘sukitai’.”
●
Mitotsudaira saw her king walk over to the 1st Special Duty Officer and point at himself.
“Tenzou, I’m you, okay? And you’re Mary.”
Then he shoved at the 1st Special Duty Officer like they were moshing.
“Sukitaaaaaaai! I sukitaaaaaaaai you, Mary-donooooo!”
“I-is that supposed to be me confessing my love!? You just sound like a creep!”
“Hey! Mary wouldn’t say that! Would you, Mary!?”
“Eh!? W-well, no, I wouldn’t say that if it was Master Tenzou.”
“Sukitaaaaaaai! I sukitaaaaaaaai you, Mary-donooooo!”
“You are the worst! Just the worst!”
Mitotsudaira’s king backed away from the 1st Special Duty Officer and took a fighting stance. Mitotsudaira took the same stance. Then she followed his lead to bring their hands together to form a heart mark.
“I hope ‘sukitai’ is the correct one,” she said.
“My,” said Mary, holding her hands to her flushing cheeks. The 1st Special Duty Officer managed to look disgusted even through his scarf. Meanwhile, Asama tilted her head.
“But what would ‘sukitai’ actually mean?”
“Testament.” Horizon raised her right hand. “Sukitai is a form of everyday training used by the Hayato people of Satsuma, Kyushu. Whenever someone let their guard down, they would sneak up behind them, shout ‘sukitai!’, which would mean ‘you’re open!’ in the local dialect, and send a rising kick into their crotch. But this caused permanent damage to too many young men, so the Shimazu clan issued a Sukitai ban. The Jigen-ryu school of martial arts was created to replace it.”
“Is it bad that I could almost believe that when it comes to Satsuma?”
“I thought the same thing halfway through making up the story, but I am ashamed I could not come up with a better joke.”
That aside, one thing did come to mind.
“Sukitai is Far Eastern for Scythian,” said Mitotsudaira. “The Scythians were an equestrian people who swept across northeastern Europe in the pre-Roman age.”
“What’d they use for weapons? Mechanical horses?”
“They used…” she said before tilting her head. This had been such a large leap, she was now wondering why she had even thought of it.
“Wait, hold on. We actually have some Scythians here,” said Masazumi.
Everyone turned toward her.
Huh? was Mitotsudaira’s thought. Because…
“The Scythians scattered during the 3rd century BCE, with their culture and bloodlines finding their way into the nomadic peoples in the Slavic region.”
“That’s true. But…”
Masazumi pointed toward her feet. Down. Into the ditch at the edge of the gravel.
“You called?”
An algae creature was there.
●
How should I explain this? wondered Masazumi with a hand on her chin.
“The algae creatures clean the sewage and such, right? But if you look at the ancient history recreations, that kind of job was done by the slave class. But the algae creatures need to do that to live, so things get a little tricky. You see…”
Before she could say more, Neshinbara looked up and spoke.
“The word slave is thought to come from the word Slav. The former Scythian land became known as the Slavic region. During the Roman period, the people there were taken away during war and made to work as the slave class in other regions.”
“Judge. That’s right. Now, the algae creatures had their original homes officially listed as the Slavic wetlands. This had nothing to do with the original class issues – it was done to protect them by ensuring no one else could take these jobs from them.”
“I see,” everyone else said together.
And Mitotsudaira looked to the algae creature.
“And because of that origin, the algae creatures are still seen as descendants of the Scythians?”
“Thanks to their shared memories, the concept of death doesn’t really apply to them, so you could say that. But that’s a problem because they don’t have any weapons. So…”
Masazumi thought some.
Carlos I and his group had loved riddles.
“In the Testament, the Scythians were what we would call the Slavic people now. Let’s say that was intended to refer to the slave class. So if foreign royalty were talking about the slave class as part of a riddle, who would they actually mean?”
This wasn’t meant as an insult or anything like that. It was based on the very real class system.
“The slaves would be…the Far East. Because we’re under provisional rule.”
Which would mean..
“It’s the Logismoi Oplo.”
●
“Hold on a sec, Seijun.”
Asama saw Toori ask interrupt while scratching his head.
“This code was made back when Mary there was still a kid, right? Probably, anyway. Why would they be mentioning the Logismoi Oplo back then? And isn’t calling us slaves a little much? That’s just crazy.”
Still Got It: “It is not crazy. It is a perfectly normal form of kink. About twice a month, we roleplay a rebellion or the suppression of one, depending on our mood that night.”
Mitotsudaira broke her sign frame, but that didn’t seem very useful when everyone else’s was still open.
But Asama was curious about one thing, so she asked someone who knew a lot about Europe.
●
The Musashi’s purged base hulls were being sent south. On the way to Sanuki, if they continued southwest, they would end up at Osaka, which was essentially a Hashiba base. So instead, they traveled south toward Nara along the Kizu River and, when the river turned east, cut south through Nara to Yamato. Once they arrived at the Yoshino River spoken of in classic poetry, they would follow it west. From there, they only had to follow the river to emerge into the Kii Channel between Shikoku and the Kii Peninsula.
“But everything around Nara looks so cool.”
With the Tres Españan fleet guarding them in the night sky, Tadaoki viewed his surroundings from atop a purged section. He was from M.H.R.R., so the location of his home meant he rarely ever traveled east of Osaka. He had gone to Kyou, but the first time he was distracted by the difficulties with his wife. And the second time a big chunk of the city collapsed, dammit. Plus, Kyou is so fashionable of late, it would look like I’m just following the trends if I visited now.
Nara’s the better choice. Or Awaji if you’re in Yamato. This place has all the old style stuff!
He viewed the scenery through a lernen figur and searched the lyrics in his song library for matching terms. He also let his wife choose some terms. And boy did I find some good stuff. He displayed the Kinokawa route they would be taking with enough detail to see the shape of the river.
This is the real homeland of poetry, he thought when he suddenly grew curious about Honnouji.
To the north, he could see the Musashi sinking behind the mountains and the pillar of light rising into the sky.
The pillar looked skinny but tall. It continued as far up into the sky as he could see. The top seemed to disappear, but he knew that was just the perspective making it grow thinner until it wasn’t visible anymore.
He didn’t know what was going to happen, but one thing was certain.
He had no place there.
…Because Nagaoka Tadaoki turned down Akechi Mitsuhide’s request for assistance.
In the Testament, Nagaoka Tadaoki saw Hashiba had the advantage, imprisoned Tamako – his wife and Akechi Mitsuhide’s daughter – in their home, rejected all of Mitsuhide’s offers, and then expressed his intent to join the Hashiba side.
And currently, the Musashi Chancellor had provisionally inherited Mitsuhide’s name.
He couldn’t help. A further issue was the interpretation for him not joining Hashiba.
But his wife had an idea for that:
“You can say that the place you are imprisoning me is very far away.”
Hence their trip to Shikoku. They presented a threat to Musashi, so they were moving far away from Musashi. That would keep Musashi safe, but…
“It’s so irritating.”
Who would win if the Battle of Yamazaki started after the Honnouji Incident?
He knew his old allies in Hashiba were really good at what they did. But Musashi’s people are all idiots, so you never know what they’re going to do. Don’t let them get your pants off. They might spread the photos all over the divine network.
His oddly specific worries were interrupted by someone approaching.
His wife had decided to change position thanks to a divine transmission from the Asama Shrine Representative.
After stopping nearby, she scooted right up next to him. He liked that, but he also wasn’t sure how to respond. She’s so warm. But…
“Tadaoki-sama? I was hoping to ask you something.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“Testament. Are you interested in the structure of the ruled and the rulers?”
●
This was going to take some discussion, so in the interest of saving time, Asama passed it over to an expert.
“Um, I just asked the Swedish Chancellor about this slave stuff because she knows a lot about the situation in Europe. I asked her if that way of thinking is still a thing.”
Still Got It: “It is! I vote that it is! And with my husband’s vote, that’s two votes for it! C’mon, Nate, you raise your hand too! You’re going to get a lot of use out of this genre in the future! Up with that hand!”
Silver Wolf: “Tomo! Tomo! Do not include me to make it three votes!”
Asama: “Three votes? No, of course not.”
She had to include Toori’s vote too, so it was four.
●
…The ruled and the rulers?
“Huh?” Tadaoki tilted his head.
Did this have to do with the rock and punk they had been discussing earlier?
The establishment vs. the antiestablishment. The poetry he had learned showed that duality had existed since ancient times. Ever since the rise of the Taira clan, when politics had shifted from the Imperial Court to the Buke, people were a lot less hesitant about speaking their mind about the establishment.
And from that point of view…
“Men want to be on the side of the rulers, but at the same time, the ruled fighting back against their rulers is really manly, don’t you think?”
“T-testament. I-in that case?” She asked him a question. “How many times a week do you think it is acceptable to do a…broadly-defined version of that action?”
●
Mitotsudaira saw Asama reading the response on a sign frame. She placed a hand on her chin, nodded a few times, and turned to the others.
“Our expert opinion says that three times a week is ‘acceptable’.”
“That’s a lot!” exclaimed Mitotsudaira.
“Hm.” Her king crossed his arms. “Didn’t realize they were thriving quite that much. Maybe we should start exploring too.”
“W-we really don’t have to take things in that direction.”
“That is correct, Toori-sama. Having an average of two service days a week for the knight, shrine maiden, and good wife genres with the final day to recuperate is already quite a packed schedule.”
“D-did you slip a weird one in there for yourself? Pretty sure you did.”
That seems better than two days of live-broadcast wrestling.
But Masazumi waved her hand dismissively.
“Okay, I’ll admit the Logismoi Oplo part is a bit of a stretch. But what we did at Mikawa was only so sensational because we were being ruled over. That includes what Lord Motonobu did too. We are building up an equal position with the other nations now, but that’s only because the other nations have recognized the benefits we bring after England and Magdeburg. But our equality still isn’t backed up by history or law. Plus, this code was likely made more than a decade ago.
“In that case,” she said. “A little over a decade ago seems about right for when they would have been developing the Logismoi Oplo as a plan for dealing with the Apocalypse. And to continue what we were discussing before, it has been common practice to treat the Far East a lot like a slave class since the Harmonic Unification War, so it doesn’t really matter what they actually thought. I mean, the term ‘provisional rule’ is common now, but it started out as a response to the discrimination.”
That’s true, thought Mitotsudaira.
“The code for referring to the provisional rulers would probably be Rome.”
Four Eyes: “Mito Lord, can I use that one? I really like it.”
She didn’t mind, so she nodded and sent over fingerprint authorization.
In other words…
“It is a riddle-like game. They linked the original history of Western Europe and the Middle East with the current situation in order to hint at the relationship between the Far East and the provisional ruling nations.”
●
This really is a stretch, thought Masazumi.
But that was how it worked. The code’s writer used code words to hide their true meaning. So it was up to the reader to work out the true meaning, but…
“The real evidence is if it makes sense in context with the rest of the text.”
She opened a sign frame and displayed the code they had discussed before. She added in the meaning they had come up with just now to get…
“The ideal and the king are broken.
“Nagayoshi’s skull is correct.
“Offer the Scythian weapons (the Logismoi Oplo) to the rock.
“At the end of summer, offer the skull to the orb.
“Where are the two holy women?”
It seemed to be making a lot more sense now.
Naito copied that interpretation down onto a Magie Figur and frowned.
“This feels like a Bara-yan kind of thing. Y’know, strange fiction?”
“But we can replace a lot of this with the ‘real’ meaning, right? Like how Scythian had a double meaning,” said Mitotsudaira.
“But do we have any hint for what that real meaning could actually be?” asked Mary.
Masazumi had an idea there. It came from something Akechi Mitsuhide had said.
“Lord Nobuhide’s Golgotha was only a theory and it came first.”
And…
“Lord Motonobu’s Messiah was actually completed.”
●
Masazumi saw everyone lower their heads a bit when she repeated those two lines.
They had a strong “hm” look to them and she couldn’t help but groan in thought too.
…We can’t stretch it enough to fit that, can we?
The code was discussing some kind of project.
It was likely talking about inspecting a past failure and explaining the correct way to handle the project.
The project probably used the Logismoi Oplo and Lord Motonobu had carried it out.
Is this different from the Genesis Project? she wondered, but she wasn’t ready to say that much.
While everyone groaned in thought, Naito spoke up.
“Akechi must’ve been surprised.”
“Why? Because we made it all the way into the Imperial Palace?”
“No, because they had left so many hints and clues around, but we still hadn’t found the answer before showing up.”
“You did go ‘eh?’ to him, Vice President,” said Adele.
The idiot and his sister stood in front of Masazumi. Without warning, they both looked her way and…
“Eh?”
“It’s not my fault! I just hadn’t reached that point yet!”
“That’s right, Toori-kun and Kimi. It wasn’t that Masazumi hadn’t thought about it – she just hadn’t done a good enough job of thinking about it.”
“Tomo! Tomo! You’re not helping!”
“Neshinbara-samaaaa!”
They turned around to see Neshinbara sitting cross-legged on the gravel with his back to them.
“Hey, Neshinbara. What are you doing?”
“Stop, Masazumi-sama! Neshinbara-sama is attempting to solve the dark high priest’s riddle by harnessing pyramid power to link his mediation time with the Great Buddha in the unfathomable universal space! Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep! Yes, yes, it’s coming throughhhhh!!”
“Ariadust-kun! You were doing so good at the start, but you blew it at the end!” said Neshinbara.
“By the way, how’d you say all that without biting your tongue even once?” asked the idiot.
“Gah.”
“You were saving it up, weren’t you, Horizon!? Great job!” said Mitotsudaira.
I have no idea what they’re talking about anymore. But based on what Neshinbara had said before…
“You had decoded the memo, right?”
“Judge. But to figure out what the riddle beyond that is referring to will honestly require the brutish power I excel at.”
Four Eyes: “Do you mean brute force?”
…Will he die if he doesn’t phrase things weirdly?
“Oh, but Takarazuka Honda-kun! Don’t worry about me! I do this kind of thing for fun!”
“Yeah, okay, have fun then. Everyone, it’s time to board the transport ship!”
“Takarazuka Honda-kun! Why do I get the feeling you don’t believe in me!?”
Shut up.
It sounded like Asama had a spell ready with her father’s authorization. Seeing that, Crossunite tapped the map of Honnouji he had made.
“We will do everything we can to get all of you to Honnouji’s central stage right here. That is what this fight really comes down to.”
“Easy? Simple? Cake slice?”
“Not necessarily, Algae-dono.” Crossunite responded to the algae at his feet, earning a smile from Mary. “While Tres España arrived in a hurry to stop us at Kyou, P.A. Oda has had plenty of prep time. We will need a proper battle formation if we hope to get through.
I’ll take your word for it, thought Masazumi before another divine transmission arrived from Ookubo.
Vice President: “Why do you keep sending messages? If you just want attention, I can direct the idiot your way.”
Nagaya-Stable: “Don’t you dare! More importantly: Hokuriku! You heard Maeda Toshiie was facing the Hashiba forces, right?”
…I’m pretty sure she told me that herself.
But Ookubo continued before Masazumi could point that out.
Nagaya-Stable: “He’s sent out something a lot flashier than the large skeletons we saw. We might be looking at an upset here.”
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