Vol. 1 Chapter 2.9 – Late October, 1566

Shizuko was troubled by a certain natural phenomenon that was due to occur in several days.

In modern times, it would be the sort of event that parents and children might go out together to observe, but unfortunately, in the Sengoku period, it would likely be regarded as some manner of divine curse or ominous portent.

What concerned Shizuko was whether the villagers would become anxious because of it.

‘Would they understand if I explained the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun…?’

Explaining it verbally would be easy enough. The problem was that the villagers lacked the basic knowledge required to understand such an explanation.

Because of that, Shizuko worried that they might only half-listen to what she said, leaving the fear she actually wanted to dispel unresolved.

On the other hand, the lunar-eclipse celestial spectacle would occur between 10:45 p.m. Japan time and 2:18 a.m. the following day.

No matter how she looked at it, people of the Sengoku period would hardly ever see it. Once the sun went down, all that remained was to sleep.

‘But what if someone happens to wake up and sees it?’

After thinking it over again and again, Shizuko ultimately decided that if anyone noticed it, she would explain it in the manner of a fairy tale.

She would mix in facts that sounded plausible while presenting it like a story for children, thereby easing their fears.

Having reached that conclusion, Shizuko immediately began devising the story, moving her pen across the sand board she used in place of a notebook.

‘Maybe I can go with something like,『OTento-sama is hiding behind OTsuki-san』…?’

While Shizuko busied herself thinking up such a fanciful tale, Aya was cleaning the room where Shizuko kept her belongings.

Though it was called cleaning, the room did not appear particularly dirty, perhaps because Shizuko tended to clean it regularly herself.

At most, Aya only needed to sweep the floor.

Even though she had been assigned to investigate Shizuko’s talents, she still had to attend to her mistress’s daily needs as part of her ordinary duties.

It might have seemed troublesome to investigate Shizuko while also working as a housemaid but in truth, this arrangement was far more convenient for Aya.

After all, under the pretext of cleaning the house, she was free to examine Shizuko’s personal belongings as much as she pleased.

What was more, Shizuko did not suspect Aya of doing anything of the sort in the slightest and casually entrusted the cleaning to her.

Shizuko’s residence consisted of three rooms: one used for storing belongings, one serving as a workroom and the last being her private room.

The reason her house was larger than that of an ordinary peasant was that Nobunaga had rewarded her for the crops she had presented to him during the first and second years.

What had once been an ordinary ramshackle hut had been transformed. Though simple, a fence had been erected, a yard had been made—although it was now used almost entirely for drying food—kennels for Wittmann and the others had been built, and she had been given a house with more rooms than could be counted on one hand.

Naturally, a house of that size required someone to help with the household chores, and it was under that pretext that Aya had been sent to her.

However, things did not proceed quite so smoothly.

For one thing, there were always two or three wolves somewhere in whichever room Shizuko was using.

Thus, whenever Aya tried to do anything under the guise of cleaning, the wolves would hear the slightest sound and come into the room.

Aya felt as though she were being watched and in truth, the wolves actually were watching her.

However, their reasoning was nothing like what Aya imagined.

Their thoughts were merely born from the hierarchy of the pack. 【What is someone lower in rank doing inside the boss’s room?】

Amid all this, Aya discovered two peculiar things.

One was a somewhat large wooden chest tightly bound with sturdy rope.

The other was the medium-sized crossbow Shizuko used for hunting.

The wooden chest was kept in one of the rooms Shizuko frequently used and even if Aya tried to open it, it did not look like something she could easily manage with her strength.

The rope had been wrapped around it extremely tightly, so if she truly intended to open the chest, she would have no choice but to cut it.

But if she did that, Shizuko would discover that Aya had been secretly snooping through her belongings.

Aya concluded that her only option was to wait patiently for an opportunity to inspect its contents.

The crossbow, on the other hand, was exceedingly easy to examine.

It was not guarded nearly as carefully as the wooden chest and had simply been piled together with the other hunting equipment.

Even when Aya carried it around under the pretext of cleaning, Shizuko said nothing.

The only warning she received was that it was a 《weapon》and therefore dangerous if handled carelessly.

And it was precisely that word,《weapon》that caused Aya to take such a strong interest in the crossbow.

‘I’ve never seen a mechanism like this…Shizuko-sama called it a bow but I’ve never seen a bow like this before.’

Shizuko maintained three different types of crossbows.

The first was a crossbow with a simple construction.

The second was the largest of the three and had the stiffest string.

The third and final type was what would be called a compound crossbow, equipped with pulleys.

The second crossbow had been created by enlarging the first design for use in hunting deer but drawing its string inevitably required specialized equipment.

Wondering what she could do about that, Shizuko consulted her elder sister’s books and came across the compound design that used pulleys.

However, manufacturing pulleys required an even higher level of technology than producing the specialized cocking equipment.

Thus, she and Kinzo had begun by constructing the specialized machinery needed to manufacture them.

After failure upon failure, they finally succeeded in completing the processing equipment and producing pulleys but because the machinery relied upon the power of a waterwheel, the time required for completion depended heavily on the flow of the river.

When conditions were favorable, producing a single pulley took approximately three months.

When the river flowed poorly, it could take nearly five months.

They could manufacture around twenty of them in parallel, but even so, the amount of time required to produce even a single component was enormous.

For that reason, they had manufactured and stored numerous spare parts.

Naturally, the improvements were not limited to the pulleys.

There was also a stock to reduce shaking, a trigger made from precious metal, a cocking rope to assist in drawing the string, and a shoulder strap made from deer hide so the weapon could be carried on one’s back, along with numerous other smaller improvements.

There was no way to accurately measure its actual draw weight, but Shizuko estimated it by eye to be somewhere around 150 to 185 pounds.

To her, however, its raw power was largely irrelevant.

The only thing that mattered was whether or not it could bring down a deer with ease.

Naturally, the third-generation crossbow allowed the string to be drawn with little difficulty and made it possible to pull the trigger from a stable shooting position, greatly improving the efficiency of her hunts.

Even the cocking rope was merely an auxiliary tool and was normally unnecessary, so most of the time she simply carried it with her as a precaution.

Upon seeing a crossbow packed with technology far beyond the standards of the age, Aya instinctively felt that it was something that needed to be reported to Nobunaga.

Reporting the existence of mysterious objects such as this was part of her duty, but even so, the crossbow was far too unusual to ignore.

The reason Shizuko herself had not reported the crossbow was because she understood that, in every respect, its performance was inferior to a matchlock gun and that it was only truly useful for hunting.

In practice, no matter how quickly one could fire successive bolts or how high the initial velocity and penetrating power might be, a crossbow still used shorter projectiles than a Japanese longbow. As a result, the distance over which it could reliably deliver effective power was limited to roughly fifty to seventy meters.

History had already demonstrated that if one were going to equip soldiers with crossbows, it was far more effective to arm them with matchlocks instead.

Unfortunately, Aya knew nothing of that historical background.

‘…The real problem is how I am going to get this to Mori-sama.’

Aya pondered the matter while staring at the compound crossbow.

There were not many of them, so if one went missing, Shizuko would notice immediately.

And when that happened, Aya, who was responsible for cleaning and attending to Shizuko’s personal affairs, would naturally be the first person suspected.

Aya wondered what she should do but the problem was resolved far more easily than she expected.

“Huh? You want to borrow the crossbow? Sure.”

Aya had decided to try asking discreetly but Shizuko’s answer was, unexpectedly, immediate permission.

She agreed so casually that Aya was left staring at her in stunned silence despite having received exactly the answer she wanted.

“It doesn’t have any kind of safety mechanism, so be careful when handling it. Well, I taught you how to use it the other day, so I think you’ll be fine.”

Having said only that, Shizuko turned back toward her desk and resumed her work.

Not wanting to interrupt her work and risk putting her in a bad mood, Aya bowed and left the room.

A short while later, Aya summoned one of Mori Yoshinari’s messengers and handed him a letter.

Its contents were brief.

《Shizuko-dono possesses a weapon believed to be of Nanban origin.》

On October 27, Aya personally delivered the crossbow to Mori Yoshinari and accompanied him to Nobunaga.

Under normal circumstances, Aya’s position would not even permit her an audience with Nobunaga. However, Mori Yoshinari himself found the object difficult to explain, so he decided to have Aya, who had observed it from the closest distance, assist with the explanation.

Once the customary greetings of the audience had been completed, Mori Yoshinari immediately presented the crossbow to Nobunaga.

“…And this is supposed to be a bow…?”

Nobunaga asked with a furrowed brow.

Crossbows and other forms of it had once existed in Japan as well. However, as the warrior class emerged and smaller-scale conflicts between opposing forces became more common, the crossbow gradually disappeared because it was difficult to earn individual military distinction with one and because it required careful maintenance and management.

The precise details are uncertain but it is said that by the Muromachi period, the craftsmen who knew how to manufacture crossbows had vanished.

In their place, light armor and bows and arrows, which were easier to maintain and handle, became the norm.

Later, when large armies centered around infantry once again emerged, longbows had already developed into long-range weapons made from composite materials, so the crossbow was never revived.

Nobunaga picked up the crossbow.

Then, as though handling something fragile, he carefully examined its construction.

After scrutinizing it closely for around five minutes, he placed the crossbow back on the tray and spoke to Mori Yoshinari.

“This cannot be used on the battlefield.”

Ignoring the reactions of the two before him, Nobunaga continued speaking almost as though he were explaining the matter to himself.

“Its construction is far too complicated and peculiar. If it were damaged, repairing it would surely take considerable effort. I do not know the exact method used to manufacture it but there can be no doubt that a great deal of intricate work went into it. And if Shizuko uses it merely to hunt beasts, then that means its power is only suited to that extent.”

“…Then..”

At Mori Yoshinari’s question, Nobunaga nodded.

“Shizuko understands all of this and deliberately chose not to report it to me. She likely judged that there was no point in reporting something that could not be used on the battlefield.”

『But』Nobunaga muttered, idly playing with the folding fan in his hand as he continued.

“Now we know that Shizuko is also well-versed in Nanban weaponry. That alone is a considerable gain.”

“But would such weapons be usable in our country?”

Although matchlock guns had undergone significant development in Japan, not every foreign weapon had met with the same success.

Crossbows and similar weapons had once again been introduced from the West but they were judged to be awkward, half-measure weapons: inferior to matchlocks in power and inferior to bows in rate of fire. As a result, they never became widespread.

Likewise, there existed weapons that might function perfectly well in the West but were difficult to employ effectively under Japanese conditions.

“If they cannot be used, then they need only be improved until they can. So long as they are not built with such an absurdly complicated structure as this bow, that is.”

Nobunaga realized that he might be able to incorporate Nanban technology sooner than he had expected.

At the thought, a grin unconsciously spread across his face.