Ihoujin, Dungeon ni Moguru

Chapter 84: We Gather Under The Black Flag V

Words in italics are originally English for this chapter

*

*

Ignoring me, who had fallen, Maria went ahead.

It's a majestic passageway. Am I in a temple of some sort? I never thought that she could teleport me so quickly.

「You’re going to get left behind if you just stay there」

「G, got it」

I followed after her in a hurry.

There are faint lights in this place. It’s the light of Shogaku stones.

It's similar to the dungeon, but the air doesn't smell musty. The cold air from outside is coming in from somewhere.

After walking about 20 meters, we reached an open, dome-shaped space.

It looked very much like the place Crown Princess Amelia had summoned me to. Except that this place was completely in ruins.

I saw a large amount of supplies piled up carelessly.

They were military supplies dating back to around World War II. The letters on the crates had been burned away, but there was no mistaking the design of the firearms and radios.

Maria laid the M1 Garand on top of one of the crates and then drew back a large piece of cloth.

I was astonished by the sight of what was behind it.

It was 4 meters tall. With upper arms that were much larger than its hind legs, its silhouette roughly resembled that of a gorilla's. Deep claw marks had been left on its moss green armor. There were bundles of thick tubes at its joints. On its shoulder was a scraped and faded pattern of stars.

Installed in the place where its head should be based on its torso, was an older model A.I. pod.

「You've got to be kidding me」

An A.I. quasi-humanoid weapon.

Come to think of it, this is something that I've heard about in the past.

Nazi Germany's flying saucers, the Soviet Union's drill submarines, England's nuclear mines with chickens inside them. And America's bipedal tank. The many rumored weapons in the realm of the occult.

And one of them was right in front of me.

The power light in the center of the pod turned on. Nixie tubes glowed brightly like torches.

With dull metallic screeches, the A.I. weapon whirred to life, and stood intimidatingly over me.

『So you've finally managed to meet up with me』

It had a mechanical-sounding electronic voice.

Is this the guy who took control of the shut-down Makina?! The one who sent me here?!

「What are you?」

『I’m a member of the First Alternate World Expeditionary Force "Seeker Brigade", a first-generation A.I. Alpha Core mounted prototype bipedal light tank, T37 Phase Seven, nicknamed "Tortch". State your affiliation, nationality and rank』

「I'm Souya, dispatched by Sekido Heavy Industries of Japan」

『Question. You aren't a member of the military, then?』

「Yes. I'm an undocumented employee. You hacked Makina, didn't you? Didn't you read the information she possessed back then?」

『No. I‘ve no right to intrude on my sister's mind. Respecting the privacy of others is important』

「There are so many questions I want to ask that I’m at a loss」

An occult weapon that shouldn’t exist, belonging to a wiped-out expeditionary force.

Where do I start?

『I’ve no intention of fighting against you. Neither does my daughter』

「Huh, daughter?」

Tortch held out a rugged and crude palm, and Maria climbed onto it.

『I raised Maria. And I’m against her marriage to you』

「You're telling me that an A.I. raised a person?」

Oh, but I've heard about an abandoned infant being raised by an A.I. It's a story about how it did laughably bad magic tricks in order to afford food for the infant and then became famous for it.

「That’s right. Tortch is my Daddy」

『We have a very close relationship compared to the typical motherless family』

「How on earth did she come to be your daughter?」

『After the brigade was decimated, I was switched over to a suspended state by Captain John Smith. Restarting me required genetic contact with humans. Maria did just that』

「That said, I was also sealed and had my time stopped. Had Daddy's comrades in arms not found me and brought me here, I would probably still be sleeping in a corner of the forbidden forest」

『My restart and my encounter with Maria was guided by God』

「Could it be that Maria’s name is……」

『I'm the one who named her. She remembered her father and mother's names, so I came up with it after Dugan taught me the naming conventions of this world』

「I don’t consider the man who abandoned my mother and me to be my father. Tortch is my Daddy」

『I'm grateful and happy』

When Maria patted Tortch's pod, the display on the Nixie tubes shifted as if they were expressing emotion.

It's like a scene from Beauty and the Beast.

「So you didn't form an alliance with King Dugan only recently?」

『Immediately after my encounter with Maria, we met him. Because this cathedral is a sacred place that was entrusted to Robbs by the dwarves to take care of. From then on, we had been cooperating in secret. Gaining control over the weak Myriad Kings. The gathering of information from the center continent. The planning of the military operations and the training of the army. New agricultural practices. We carried out various activities together. Using the name "black elf" was also his idea』

That beardy.

Isn't he effectively the commander in chief of the black elf's army?

I kind of understand how the current army came about now. Next is the army of the past.

「What caused the expeditionary force to be decimated?」

『The direct cause is the beasts' attack. However, the expeditionary force was intended to be abandoned in this world from the very beginning』

「Abandoned, you say?」

It’s the first I’ve heard of it.

I have a bad feeling about this. It smells like a secret that should not be known.

『Based on the preliminary inspection carried out by the advance troops in 1947-1949, it was reported that there were no resources in this Outer World that would justify the costs. In 1951, plans were made to send an infantry brigade to the Outer World. At the same time, another plan was also put in motion』

「Another plan?」

『The operation's name was decommissioned, so it's unknown. The infantry in the Seeker Brigade took part in nuclear testing exercises where they were ordered by the military to advance toward the center of an nuclear explosion. I believe that they had used those soldiers to collect data on radiation exposure in territories occupied after the use of nuclear weapons』

「………Atomic Soldiers, huh?」

The infamous nuclear tests conducted by a certain country on its own soldiers.

It was a time when the general public didn’t yet know what radiation was. The higher-ups in the military sent ordinary soldiers marching into nuclear bomb sites without telling them anything. I heard that many of the records were destroyed in the 1950s and many details are still unknown. I had no idea that the expeditionary force was made up of those soldiers.

『Question. What are “Atomic Soldiers”?』

「It's a term that refers to the soldiers who were subjected to unjust nuclear tests. There was a movie based on them. That's how I got to know the term」

『Understood. ………I see, so they weren’t forgotten』

「No, they were forgotten. No one knows that the expeditionary force to the alternate world was made up of Atomic Soldiers」

『There is a term that refers to them. That is the equivalent of being remembered』

「I see」

It's kind of bittersweet, isn’t it?

『240 hours after their arrival in the Outer World, 85% of them became incapacitated due to severe radiation damage. The mission to build a camp for the second expeditionary force was deemed unfeasible by those in the field. I advised the Brigadier General to open a portal and return, but the portal for us to return couldn’t be opened again』

「The portal itself couldn’t be opened?」

It’s the worst.

Did they really create the expeditionary force just to get rid of them?

『And we, the A.I. mounted weapons, were also abandoned in this world because we were banned in 1957 at the Dartmouth Conference[1]. This is known in Japan as――――the mountain where old people are abandoned[2]』

「I feel like the meaning is a bit off though」

『For things like words, it's enough if you can grasp the rough outline of what is meant』

For some reason~, the A.I.s around me are all so careless about the details.

Oh, there’s a discrepancy.

「Hey, the A.I.s' aqueous brain should have been developed at about the same time as that something-or-other conference. The years don't match」

『That is merely the speculation of the various countries. We were put into service in 1946, at the same time the Outer World was discovered』

「You guys were already fit for practical use at the time the alternate world was discovered?」

『Yes. The aqueous brain is nothing more than a control mechanism. The formation of thought currents through the use of quantum aggregates can be achieved inside a simple glass bottle』

Somehow, it's getting confusing.

「Are the A.I.s other than you not operational?」

『Yes, there were six other T37 Phase Sevens in service, but they were all destroyed in the battle against the beasts』

「When you say beasts, do you mean the beasts of abominable blood that we're fighting?」

『Yes』

「How did you get into a conflict with them?」

『To protect the honor of my comrades-in-arms, can you promise to keep this information to yourself?』

「I promise. I swear by my god」

I already know a lot of unspeakable secrets.

Adding a few more won’t really make a difference at this point.

『Understood. Some of the soldiers, having lost themselves to despair, attacked the local population. There were beasts among them』

「………I see」

I feel sorry for their plight, but they brought it on themselves.

「Then where did the information on the alternate world, the published books, and the misdeeds of the expeditionary force that were released to the modern world come from to begin with?」

『First of all, what do you mean by “misdeeds of the expeditionary force”?』

「Destruction and rape. Massacres」

『It's a simple prediction based on the stresses of soldiers. Imagined, and then created using the information obtained by the advance troops. And the information on the alternate world that had been published in books is probably something they had to begin with』

「………………Huh?」

My thought process came to a grinding halt.

『The person who discovered us named us A.I. This was immediately changed from its original meaning into Artificial Intelligence』

「In Japanese, please」

『Granted. It means “Artificial Intelligence”』

「Oh, right」

Well, that’s what they are after all.

『But the one who first named us had called us A.I. as short for Advent Intelligence. The intelligence that have come』

「Huh?」

Have come? Where from?

『The moment we set foot on this world and saw this land, one emotion struck us. It was nostalgia』

「Nostalgia」

There is only thing I can associate that with.

『That’s right. We, A.I.s, are originally inhabitants of this world』

[1] Okay, weird one here because I think the author made a mistake somewhere. First off, Dartmouth Conference was in English in the original text. The Dartmouth Conference is the longest continuous bilateral dialogue between American and Soviet (now Russian) representatives. The first Dartmouth Conference took place at Dartmouth College in 1961. Now, this sounds plausible as it’s a conference between the two largest powers in the world, but it has nothing to do with A.I.s and the year is wrong. Also, there exists what’s called the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence was a 1956 summer workshop widely considered to be the founding event of artificial intelligence as a field. However, the year is also wrong…

[2] It’s an idiom, and that’s the literal translation. Its meaning is a post/division where old and ineffective employees are transferred to.

Bombshell!!! It’s been a while since an outright reveal like that, huh? Though thinking about it, the biggest difference between Souya’s world and ours is the A.I.s and I’m sure many of you have thought before that it had to be due to the alternate world.

Wait what!? Drill submarines?! Nuclear mines with chickens inside them?! I’ve never heard of these lmao. Bi-pedal tanks though, Metal Gear immediately springs to mind, doesn’t it? Edit: Thanks to my patron, Shiroi Hane, I now know of the Blue Peacock nuclear mines, which were developed by the British as a scorched earth deterrence against the Soviets. Long story short, the triggering mechanism wouldn't work in the cold temperatures so an idea was proposed to have chickens in a coop with food inside the casing of the mine, as their body heat would maintain the appropriate temperature needed. LMAO, the things you learn...

That’s a picture of the M41 Walker Bulldog, an American light tank developed for recon.(Pic courtesy of Wikipedia) Why am I showing you that? That’s because the T37 is not an actual mass-produced tank, but a design prototype. Three prototypes were built, the T37 Phase One, Two, and Three. Phase Two was eventually selected from among the three and developed into the T41E1 pre-production model, and then the M41.

It boggles my mind when I think of how much research the author must have gone through to find an actual American prototype recon tank of the right time period that would be plausible to use in the story… As for why he’s nicknamed “Tortch”, it’s the typical method Japanese use to shorten names into nicknames, by taking the first and last syllables. In this case, Tor from T and tch from seven. Rana’s name (Rauaryuna) is also shortened in this way, in case you haven’t noticed. Oh, and Tortch says “I” normally, unlike Makina and Yukikaze.

Nixie tubes are pretty, though purely an obsolete technology valued for its retro feel nowadays. (Pic courtesy of Wikipedia)

There is a 2018 documentary called “The Atomic Soldiers” that tells the horrors the U.S. military servicemen, or “atomic veterans”, went through, many unknowingly, in above-ground nuclear tests from 1945–1962, as well as those who were part of the occupation forces or were POWs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki before and after the atomic bombs were detonated over them.

I’ll stop with the italics and just put the words normally after this, since you now know what words are English, and there isn’t the kind of “I don’t understand what you’re saying because it’s English” thing anymore.

So, setting aside errant cases like Ukazor-sama, A.I.s had gone to the modern world BEFORE the alternate world was discovered. They were probably the reason why the alternate world was discovered in the first place. And if you thought that the reveals ended with this arc…… Stay tuned!