Chapter 7: Welcome to the Survival Club!
“Hey, Sakaki! Did you hear? There’s a delinquent at the school!”
“Huh?” The day after the mess with the killer, Yuichi came to school, only to be immediately accosted by Shota.
The label above his head now read “Ball Washer.”
“Jeez, right to the bottom!” Yuichi reflexively commented.
“Huh?” Shota suddenly seemed at a loss for words.
“Ah, sorry. I guess that sounded pretty random. Just felt like saying it,” Yuichi apologized. Maybe Shota had been an ace striker in middle school, but it seemed he would have had to start again from square one now that he was in high school.
“So, who’s the delinquent?” he asked, trying to swerve the subject away from his bizarre outburst. Knowing Shota, he would be easily distracted... and indeed, he was.
“He broke a window and took out a door! Look! There are holes in our door, too! Man, I didn’t think people still did stuff like that, but I guess the proof’s right there.”
Yuichi stiffened. He had completely forgotten about all the things he’d broken while he was trying to escape. He looked at the door to the classroom. There were two holes in it.
“Oh, yeah, right. It’s like whats-his-face Ozaki, the singer. Talk about retro, y’know?” Yuichi knew his response lacked conviction. He was the one actually behind it, after all.
“I hear there were shuriken stuck in the wall, too.”
“Y-Yeah. A ninja delinquent. That’s a new one, huh?” Yuichi was kicking himself for forgetting to clean afterwards. Then again, even if he’d remembered to hide the kunai, there was no way he could have repaired the glass and the door. There was nothing to do, then, but to pray that no one fingered him as the culprit.
“By the way, what’s up with your bag? I saw it on your desk and figured you’d gotten here before me.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I forgot to take it home yesterday.” As usual, Shota bought the excuse, and didn’t press him any further on the issue.
“It’s just hard to believe someone at this school would do something like that...” Shota looked around the classroom. There was no one around them, at least, whose appearance screamed “delinquent.”
“Sometimes the most ordinary-looking people can be holding a lot of stress inside. Maybe it’s the person you’d least suspect,” Yuichi hedged, but it didn’t reduce the guilt he felt inside.
His anxiety about leaving the killer boy unattended continued to grow throughout the day. After class, he and Aiko immediately went to visit the survival club classroom.
“I couldn’t think straight all day yesterday, I was so freaked out. What about you, Sakaki?”
“Huh? I went right to sleep after I got home. Then I woke up, had dinner, and got sleepy again. Next thing I knew, it was morning.”
“You didn’t think about anything? Like what we’re going to do next?” Aiko asked, dumbstruck.
He had to admit it made him sound like a scatterbrain, but he’d just been so sleepy, he hadn’t been able to help himself. Besides, he was feeling a lot better after a good night’s sleep. Almost all the aftereffects of the furukami had passed.
“...For now, all we can do is talk to her.” Yuichi ran his hand through his hair.
He had been steeling himself up all day for a talk with Natsuki Takeuchi. He couldn’t deny he’d been a bit relieved when it had turned out she hadn’t come that day. The only immediate question remaining, then, was what to do with the killer they’d left in the club room.
They walked to the old school building, a creaky wooden structure that was currently home mostly to culture clubs and storage rooms. Parts of it were warded off due to deterioration. It had been scheduled for demolition, but budget issues had caused that to be delayed.
Yuichi climbed with Aiko to the second floor and headed for the room furthest down the hall. He immediately noticed something amiss.
There was a female student standing in front of the door. She was fidgeting.
Her hair was wavy and dyed chestnut, and she seemed like the soft-spoken type.
The label above her head read “Isekai Fanatic.”
She was looking all around in agitation, and made eye contact with Yuichi and Aiko as they approached.
“Oh! Sakaki’s little brother!”
“Um... Orihara, right?”
Kanako Orihara was Mutsuko’s friend. He had met her when she had visited their house before, but didn’t know much about what sort of person she was.
“Look, it says they’re bug bombing! What will we do? I kept telling Sakaki that leaving all those things lying around would lead to unsanitary conditions...”
“Um, actually...” Yuichi looked at the door.
Bug bomb in progress!
The paper was still up.
He tried the knob. It was locked, which meant Mutsuko hadn’t been here yet. “Stop it! They’ll get out! You know, the... the black things!”
“Um, you mean cockro—”
“Don’t say it!” She fixed Yuichi with a glare that shut him right up.
“Sakaki... Who is this?” Aiko leaned over and questioned him.
“She’s my sister’s friend, a member of the survival club. Orihara... I think.”
“Is it okay if she sees the guy inside there?”
“...Probably, since she’s a member of the club, but...” He cast a dubious glance at Kanako. If the thought of seeing a cockroach freaked her out that badly, what would she do if she saw a boy tied up in shrine ropes?
“Um, Orihara, do you have the key to the room?”
“We are not going in there!” she snapped back.
“Look, I think my sister just put the sign up as a joke. There’s no bug bomb. Nothing’s going to come out.”
“You mean it?”
“Yeah.”
Kanako laid a hand to her chest in relief. She must have truly been afraid. “But I really don’t have a key. I left it at home.”
“I see. Who all has keys?”
“Just the president and the vice president. That’s Sakaki and me.”
“Then we’re stuck until Mutsuko shows up, huh? But we look like fools just standing around here...” Yuichi pulled a toolbox out of his bag.
He opened it, revealing a row of metal objects that resembled screwdrivers with sharply tapered tips.
“Sakaki... What is that?” Aiko asked, bewildered.
It was only natural that she wouldn’t know, so Yuichi answered. “Lockpicks, for unlocking doors. A cylinder lock like this is easy enough to open, so...”
“You thief!” Aiko reproached.
“I am not!”
“B-But look at yourself...” Aiko wrinkled her nose at the lockpicks.
“It’s not like I’m breaking in or anything. We’d be going in anyway, so it’s just a question of sooner or later, right?”
“Or we could just wait until your sister shows up...”
“Fine.” Though rankled by the criticism, he closed the toolbox obligingly.
“You blame a lot on your sister, Sakaki, but you’re pretty weird just by yourself. Don’t you even realize that?”
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Aiko responded, innocently.
They didn’t have to wait long for Mutsuko to show up.
“Sis, you’re late. What were you off doing?”
“Yes, Sakaki, what were you doing?”
Now that she mentioned it, Yuichi realized, Mutsuko and Kanako were both in Class 2-A. Why hadn’t they just come together?
“Oh, see, I heard there was a delinquent at the school! He broke some glass in a first-year classroom! I was all, ‘Whoa, in a nice quiet school like this?’ so I went to check it out! Wonder who did it! Maybe he’s one of those ‘had a dance with hard luck’ types!”
“U-Um, uh, about that...” Yuichi stammered. He realized he hadn’t actually told her about that.
“Oh, and I was thinking about the bug bomb thing! I decided it wasn’t gonna work after all, so I prepared a new sign!”
“Forget about the signs! We don’t need another one!”
“I thought someone might get the wrong idea.”
“...Yeah, we’ve seen plenty of someone here getting the wrong idea, haven’t we?”
“Also, it felt kind of like lying. So I wrote this!” With that, Mutsuko tore off the bug bomb sign and stuck up a new one.
Demon Castle Goddamn.
“That makes no sense! This is the survival club, right? So that’s a lie, too!”
“Really? I think anyone would be hesitant to come in if they thought Lord Greed might be hanging around. And I refer to this room as Demon Castle Goddamn, so it’s not a lie!”
“How many people will even get the reference?!”
“...Good point. How about this for a compromise, then?” Mutsuko took out her felt-tipped pen and wrote directly on the sign to fix it. It now read: Demon Castle Goddaclub.
“What kind of club is that supposed to be?!” Mutsuko unlocked the door and opened it.
The first thing Yuichi noticed was the smell. The boy was still tied up, and didn’t seem to have moved since yesterday. The fake peach stuck in his mouth was slick with drool.
He seemed to have regained consciousness, but his eyes were glazed over, and he lay there motionlessly. A puddle on the floor around his lower half seemed to be the source of the stench.
“I know he’s the one who attacked me, but I still feel kind of sorry for him.”
“Ah-ha! I failed to account for this possibility! Noro, fetch a bucket and a rag, would you? Yu, give him a change of clothes if you have one!”
“I have the uniform I wore for gym... it’s pretty sweaty, but better than what he’s got on right now.”
Aiko obediently went to fetch a bucket and rag while Mutsuko untied the boy. Yuichi watched nervously. He was afraid he might just be playing possum, but even after being freed, the killer boy showed no signs of being ready for a fight.
Yuichi checked his condition, then took off his dirty clothes and dressed him in the short-sleeved uniform shirt and shorts he pulled out of his bag.
He waffled for a minute over what to do with the boy’s old uniform, but eventually decided to just stuff it into a trash bag. As he did, he searched it, retrieving some kunai, several makibishi, and a cell phone, all of which he placed on the desk.
What is this guy, a ninja?
Kanako walked unsteadily into the room, passed them by wordlessly, then opened the window to stare up at the sky. She seemed to be retreating from reality.
Yuichi sat the boy, now dressed in fresh clothes, in a chair, and wrapped the ropes around him again.
They then washed up with the rag Aiko brought, and after a few minutes of ventilation, the smell had vanished.
“Okay, let’s make it official. Noro, Yu! Welcome to the survival club!” Yuichi and Aiko looked around the room again. It had once been a classroom, so it was quite large, but the clutter made it seem much smaller. The most notable items were the bookshelves, lined up like you’d see in a library, which took up most of the room.
Taking up the next most amount of space were the cardboard boxes — stacks and stacks of them. Yuichi couldn’t even begin to guess what might be inside. They were interspersed with piles of masks, jars, dolls, and other random junk.
There was nothing on the walls except for a large number of colorful rocks that jutted out of them, spaced out more or less regularly, from floor to ceiling. They were even in the ceiling itself.
“Hey... What are those?” Aiko pointed to the rocks on the wall.
“Hmm? Oh, those are bouldering holds. We use them for climbing practice.”
Bouldering was a type of rock-climbing, done without the aid of tools. To practice, you could stick stones in the walls and use them as handholds.
“Why do you have that?”
“Well, climbing is a very important skill for survival! You see...”
Mutsuko seemed about to start off on a rant, but Yuichi cut her off, worried about leaving the dazed killer unattended for too long. “Hey, Sis, you can tell us all about that later. We should figure out what to do with this guy.” He pointed to the killer.
“Good point! We can’t leave him like this forever, after all.” Mutsuko walked up to the boy and pulled the fake peach out of his mouth.
“Hey, can you talk?”
“...What the hell... are you guys?” he croaked.
“You’re brutes... worse than oni...” The hoarseness in his voice was only natural. He’d spent a whole day without food or water. Even if he was an oni, he didn’t appear to be all that different from a human.
“Sorry, but you’re the one who attacked me. Oh, Noro! Bring him some water.”
“You’ve been sending me out to fetch things an awful lot,” Aiko muttered, but she did as she was told, returning with a cup filled with water. The cup came from the club room, and it looked like a wine glass made of silver. There was surely some story behind that, too.
Yuichi took it and poured some water into the boy’s mouth. Choking a little, the boy drank it all down.
“I think I know why you attacked me. Natsuki Takeuchi, right?” There was no point in hiding it now, so he just used Natsuki’s name. Mutsuko already knew about the existence of serial killers, and Kanako wasn’t even listening.
“Huh? Who’s Takeuchi?” asked the boy.
“What?”
After a moment’s thought, the boy put two and two together. It didn’t sound like a ruse; he genuinely didn’t recognize her name. “...Oh, her. So that’s what she calls herself here. Yeah, I made a trade with her. I kill you, I get to use her hunting grounds.”
“The deal’s been called off, so you won’t get anything by killing me now,” Yuichi said firmly. “Got that?”
The boy laughed. “Is that what you think, huh? Like hell! I’m gonna murder every one of you!”
“Yu.” After being silent the whole time, Mutsuko finally broke in.
“What?” Yuichi asked. He turned back to look at her. She was holding a measuring cup full of dried soybeans.
“Mind if I try something?” She grinned eagerly, picked out a bean, and held it up.
“You mean the beans? Sure, knock yourself out.” Yuichi doubted something as simple as throwing beans at him would make a difference just because he was an oni. It was more likely to just annoy him, really.
The oni laughed again, mockingly. “You think those’ll work on me, huh?” “Oni begone!” Mutsuko threw the bean at him, reciting the standard Setsubun phrase.
It struck the boy’s arm like a bullet, and went out the other side.
Yuichi heard Aiko’s scream even before the boy’s. He winced at the noise, worried that someone might come to check on them.
The newspaper club was probably having activities next door, after all...
That reminded him to check on Kanako, too, but she appeared to have completely severed ties with reality. She was having a conversation with a songbird outside the window.
“Wh-What the hell are you doing? Why would you do that?” he exclaimed.
“I’ve never met a real oni before! So the beans really do work, huh?” Mutsuko nodded to herself, as if making a mental note.
Yuichi plucked a bean from a measuring cup on the floor and threw it at the boy.
“Ow!” It caused the boy to cry out in annoyance, and left a small red mark on his leg where it hit, but no more.
“Hey! Quit playing around!”
“Why did the one you threw have so much piercing power?” Yuichi demanded, ignoring the boy and turning to Mutsuko.
“Maybe it’s a faith thing? Belief is usually what gives these things their power!” she said cheerfully.
Mutsuko made it sound obvious, and it seemed likely enough. Yuichi certainly couldn’t compete with Mutsuko when it came to believing in things.
“By the way, he said he was gonna murder us all. I’m not really feeling that, so maybe we oughta just kill him now!” Mutsuko held up a second bean for the throw. She was aiming at his face. If it hit with the same dramatic force as before, it probably would kill him.
“Hey! Don’t let her do it!” The boy quickly began to panic.
Yuichi raised his hand to urge Mutsuko to stop. Mutsuko lowered her hand, but she was still holding the bean, ready to throw it at any minute.
“Okay. We’re going to make some demands now, got that? First, stop trying to kill any of us.”
“Fine. But how do you know I won’t go back on the deal?” It was a surprisingly forthcoming response; obviously, he would say anything under threat of bean-bullet.
“I don’t, but I’m hoping you’ll be too afraid to come after us. Next time, I won’t show any mercy. My sister will gladly go oni-hunting, Shorty over there will suck out all your blood, and Orihara will gaze up at the sky.”
“I don’t suck blood, and I’m not short!” Aiko shouted indignantly. She didn’t seem to like being reminded of her height.
“I’ll stay away from you for life,” the boy vowed.
“Good. That’s demand number one. Now for number two. I want you to tell us more about Natsuki Takeuchi. What is she? Is she exactly like you? Is she tough?”
“She’s... similar, in that she attacks people, but she’s not like us aboriginal oni. She’s a foreign species.”
“Why do you attack people, anyway?”
“For food. Well, I enjoy it, too, but some of us wring our hands over it a little more.”
“You eat people?!”
“Well, yeah. We’re oni.” He made it sound like you’d have to be stupid to think otherwise.
Yuichi looked back to Mutsuko.
“Yeah. There’re a lot of types of oni, but in Japan, we generally believe that they eat people,” she said.
“Well, it’s kind of like a curse placed on us,” the oni boy said. “Most living things just need a certain amount of nutrients and calories, but we need to eat people. It’s like we’re prisoners of karma.”
“...Can we assume Takeuchi is the same way?” Yuichi asked uneasily. One of his classmates was eating people. It wasn’t an image he wanted to think about, but he still had to ask.
“I think she’s a little different. I think she kills for mental satisfaction or something like that. For our kind, killing people is just a way to eat them. If we have to, we can just eat people who’re already dead. But her kind needs to kill with their own hands.”
Yuichi was a little relieved to hear that. She was still killing people, of course, but whether or not she ate them made a big difference in his perception.
“As for how tough she is... I haven’t seen her fight myself, but she’s probably tougher than me,” the boy continued.
“Why do you think that?”
“My big brother Shuten tried to horn in on her hunting grounds and ended up half dead for his trouble. Shuten’s tougher than I am, so she must be tougher than me.”
“I see.” Unfortunately, just knowing she was tougher than him didn’t really change much. All they could do was just be on their guard.
“That’s about it for me. Do you have any questions, Noro?”
“Huh? Me? I don’t think so...” Aiko was clearly caught off-guard at having the subject suddenly tossed to her.
“What about you, Sis?”
“None from me, either. I think this is your problem, Yu. Of course, I’ll help you however you want me to, but a big sister’s gotta respect her little brother’s independence!”
“Yeah, yeah. So, what do we do with this guy?”
“If you don’t need him anymore, why don’t we let him go?” Mutsuko began untying him without a second thought.
“You heard her,” Yuichi said.
“You can go.”
The boy stood up and checked the places where his arms had been bound. His right arm, the one pierced by the bean, didn’t seem to be working. The bleeding had already stopped, but it didn’t seem to be healing immediately, either.
“Hey... just who are you people?”
“We’re the Seishin High School Survival Club! We study knowledge and skills you need to survive in this cruel world! It can help you make it out of disasters, large-scale terrorist strikes, and of course, oni and yokai attacks!”
“Wait a minute... this is a survival technique?” The boy groaned, self-reproachfully.
“You’ve gotta be kidding...” He glared down at the shrine rope and sardines scattered on the floor. Then he sat back down.
“Huh?” Yuichi’s jaw dropped.
“So this is like a club, right?” the boy continued.
“How about you show me what you’ve got?”
“What the hell? Get out! No one asked you!” Yuichi shouted after a moment. It was an utterly baffling statement.
“Okay! We’ll show you what we’ve got!” his older sister chimed in.
“Hey!” Yuichi shouted, outraged. Their interrogation was over. The guy had no reason to stay.
“Sorry. Club prez said so.” The boy grinned triumphantly.
Yuichi stared forlornly at Mutsuko. He knew that once she had decided on something, it was nearly impossible to get her to change her mind.
“The survival club never turns anyone away!” Mutsuko declared with unnecessary pretension.
“What do you think, Orihara? You’ve been staring outside this whole time,” Yuichi said.
“What was that, Sakaki? Hmm? I didn’t see anything!”
“That’s right, you didn’t see anything. So come over here and we’ll start our club activities.”
“Oh, but...” Kanako was still gazing outside. She didn’t even gesture at looking into the room.
“It’s okay. You probably thought there was a boy tied up in here who peed himself, but it was just your imagination.”
“Really? Was it really?”
“Yes, it really was. Come back in and look!” At Mutsuko’s urging, Kanako turned back.
“Eek!” She let out a little scream at the sight of the blond boy.
“Don’t worry, that’s just a friend of Yu’s. You probably thought you saw him lying on the floor before, but it was just your imagination.”
“Was it? Was it really my imagination?”
“It really was. You’re such a worrywart, Orihara. You’re gonna be in big trouble if you ever get sent to an isekai for real.”
“Y-Yes, you’re right. I could never survive in an isekai like this. I really must be braver.”
That’s how you convince her?! Yuichi thought as he slammed his face down on the table.
The main club table was made up of two long, narrow folding tables stuck together. Aiko, Yuichi, and the blond boy sat together on one side.
Across from them sat Mutsuko, and — after being led back to reality — Kanako.
“Okay! Club activities, commence!”
“Wait a minute!” Yuichi interrupted, holding up his hand.
“I never said I wanted to join the survival club. Neither did Noro.” He figured it was no use, but he’d at least try to resist.
“Oh, really? Now that you mention it, you never filled out the forms... So let’s do that now!” Mutsuko ran off and came back with the submission forms, which she laid out in front of the two.
As expected, they weren’t getting out of here without joining the club. “...Fine, I’ll join... but can I be in two clubs?”
“Hmm? If you want to... is there another club you wanted to join, Yu?”
“Choir club.”
“Huh? Why?” Aiko asked, sitting up in surprise. She looked like she never would have dreamed that choir club would be his first choice.
“Huh? Why is that weird? I just want to play the piano.”
“You play the piano, Sakaki?” Aiko asked in amazement.
“Yeah, it’s a hobby. Is that a problem? We only have an electric keyboard at home, though, so I’d really like to try a real one..” Yuichi had taken piano lessons through elementary school, and he still enjoyed playing the electric keyboard. Both of his sisters had also started lessons, but given up immediately.
“Noro, do you have another club you want to join, too?”
“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it...”
“Then you can join the survival club! Participation in club activities is totally voluntary! You can just show up on the days when you feel like it! Like, Orihara and I are the only ones who came today!”
“Yeah, what’s up with that? How can you have activities with just the president and vice president?”
“So if you also want to join the choir club, Yu, you can!”
“Fine. I guess I don’t mind just being on the roll. Is that good enough?”
"Same here...” Aiko spoke up hesitantly.
They both signed the submission forms, and Mutsuko took them, smiling brightly.
“Okay, let’s make it official. Actually, I feel like I’m saying that a lot today...
But anyway, welcome to the survival club!”
“Yeah, okay,” Yuichi said.
“It’s a pleasure to be here,” Aiko added.
Yuichi’s response was perfunctory, whereas Aiko’s seemed relatively earnest.
“Well, shall we begin with member introductions?” Mutsuko asked.
“Oh, come on...” Yuichi groaned. He already knew everyone, so it just seemed like a waste of time.
“Okay, I’ll start,” she said.
“Mutsuko Sakaki! I’m the club president! My specialty is fictional martial arts! Okay, Orihara, you’re next!” Mutsuko urged. Kanako stood up and gave a short bow in greeting.
“I am Kanako Orihara. I am the club’s vice president. My specialty is isekai.”
“Got it! Yu, you’re next.”
“Yuichi Sakaki,” he grumbled.
“Aw, is that all?” Mutsuko frowned.
“I don’t have a specialty.”
“Well, okay. Next, Noro.”
“Okay. I’m Aiko Noro. I don’t know if I have a specialty, but my hobby is making sweets. It’s a pleasure to be here.”
“Got it. Nice to have you! Now you, oni guy.” Mutsuko pointed to the oni boy.
“Huh? You want me to do one?” He seemed surprised at being addressed.
“That’s right. It would be sad if you hung out here and we didn’t even know your name!”
“Fine... I’m Kyoshiro Ibaraki. I’m fifteen years old. If I were in high school, I’d be a first-year.”
“You mean you’re not? But you wore a school uniform, didn’t you?”
“That was just camouflage to blend in with humans. People like us don’t go to normal high schools. That girl... Takeuchi, did you call her? She’s about the only one I know who does go out of her way to go to school.”
Yuichi looked at the boy — apparently named Ibaraki — again.
“Ibaraki-doji” was now the label above his head. It was different from before. Maybe because he now knew he and Natsuki were different species... or maybe Natsuki’s would also become more specific the next time he saw her. He couldn’t be sure just yet.
“Well, introductions over. Let’s get started!” Mutsuko stood up and pulled up the whiteboard.
She pulled out a black marker and wrote “Isekai Survival Ideas” on it.
“What is that?” Aiko asked, hesitantly.
“Hmm? We’re going to brainstorm ideas about how to survive if you ended up in an isekai. Another world! You know, like with time travel, or dimension hopping!”
“Is there any point to that? I could understand figuring out how to survive an earthquake, or even a nuclear war, but dimension hopping?”
“You can’t prove it doesn’t happen, so it clearly does!” Mutsuko spoke up with perfect confidence.
Yuichi supposed it was true that he had no proof that people couldn’t travel dimensions...
“We have a lot of beginners here today, so we’ll start simple. I mean, figuring out what to do if you traveled to a world full of silicon-based lifeforms would probably be a little advanced.”
“Is this really a subject you can have an advanced perspective in?”
“So let’s consider an isekai where the Japanese language and Japanese common sense applies. Say... if you traveled back in time to the Warring States Period! Orihara, please lead the discussion. Noro, you keep the minutes.”
“Huh? Me? But I’ve never done that before...”
“It’s okay. Just write down what you can. We’ll help you fill in whatever you’ve missed.” She slid her a pen and notepad.
“Right. I will now lead the discussion. Thank you all for coming. I’ll get right to the point. There are quite a few works that deal with travel to the Warring States Period.” Kanako began writing names on the whiteboard.
“Ryo Hanmura’s G.I. Samurai. This is a famous novel that has been adapted into a TV show and a feature film. It’s about the Self-Defense Forces traveling to the Warring States Period. Mikage Kasuga’s The Ambition of Oda Nobuna. This is a light novel that has been adapted into an anime. The protagonist travels into a Warring States-like world where the famous generals are all girls. A Chef of Nobunaga, written by Mitsuru Nishimura and drawn by Takuro Kajikawa. This is a manga that was also adapted into a TV show. It’s about a chef from modern day Japan who travels into the Warring States Period and ends up serving Nobunaga. This list is not comprehensive, but there are so many works you can buy onventionally, and if we added web novels, it would just get overwhelming. Nobunaga-centric novels have been growing in popularity lately, so we’ll discuss it from that vantage point for now. What should you do if you found yourself in Nobunaga’s army?”
Orihara seemed so meek and unassuming most of the time. Yuichi was astonished by how easily the words poured out of her mouth.
Aiko’s eyes had gone wide. She seemed to be feeling the same way.
Despite how she looks, she’s still a friend of my sister...
“The works I mentioned are adequate for providing a basic image of the time period, but they are still works of fiction, so they feature some dramatization. All stories take liberties to make things more interesting. So what do we do if we want to know more about the real Nobunaga? We consult historical texts. For this, the best primary source is The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga, written by Gyuichi Ota, an actual vassal of Nobunaga’s. In other words, this is a work written by someone who saw Nobunaga in action first-hand. Several copies of this work were made, and they all have subtle differences, so it cannot be taken completely at face value, but it’s still the best historical document about Nobunaga that we have.
“Oh, and don’t make a mistake and read The Record of Lord Nobunaga instead. That’s a novel written by a Confucian scholar named Hoan Oze, based on the Chronicle. His story is the reason people think that the battle of Okehazama took place in a valley when Okehazama is, in fact, a mountain. If you read The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga, it clearly says ‘Mt. Okehazama.’ This falsehood became pervasive because the Record was a bestseller in the Edo Period. Other works were created based off of it, and it gradually spread, until it became one of the fundamental images associated with Nobunaga. But if you end up traveling back there with these fictionalized images in your mind, you’ll get confused, so we base our premises on factual history as much as possible.
“Now, to our main subject: Personally, I believe that it would be foolish to choose to work for Nobunaga. He was an erratic man, subject to violent whims, which led to him putting many of his own followers and vassals to death. This is a hard thing to sugarcoat, so works that deal with Nobunaga as protagonist tend to leave it out. Of course, if we go with the assumption that you won’t have much of a conversation, let’s assume you manage to conduct yourself flawlessly in Nobunaga’s service. In that case, there are several major points of note: the Battle of Okehazama, the Honno-ji Incident, and the Siege of Kanegasaki. We’ll start with these. If you want to make it through these events alive...”
A single thought pervaded Yuichi’s mind. How exactly is this for beginners?!
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