Interlude: The Truth of Materials, Part Two

The giant ghost has been eliminated. Great work, everyone!

So there was one of those here too, huh. It looks like these giant ghosts serve as gatekeepers of a sort.

...Hm?

？！

I know this sort of thing happened sometimes during the wars, but...he's still just a child...

At this rate, Arai Hakuseki and Manabe Akifusa will be able to do whatever they want with the government. That little boy, the shogun? What a joke. He's a figurehead, nothing more...

Aww, what's wrong? Did somebody say something mean to you?

It's not your fault you're still so young. Whoever said that should know better.

Nobody else may love your youth, but I do. I promise.

Now, what would you like to play? I'm up for anything...

？！

It's another pillbox. Let's see... This one has "Ietsugu" written inside.

As I suspected, the database says that was the name of another future shogun. It looks like Ietsugu was the seventh in the Tokugawa lineage.

The seventh, you say? So he was Lord Iemitsu's great-grandson? I see, I see!

Tell me, what was his reign like?

(This is awful... I can't possibly tell her that he became the shogun when he was still a small child, only to die just a few years later.)

Ahem! As goddesses, we cannot go around telling others what the future has in store without a very good reason. That could create all kinds of problems.

So I hope you will understand that we cannot answer that question.

Oh, I see. If you know what's going to happen before it happens, it would throw off everything that's supposed to happen, right?

That's fine then. I don't need to hear more. Just knowing that the Tokugawa line continues on is enough for me.

(...Everything that's supposed to happen, huh... She knows nothing about magecraft or modern history...)

(...but she can still sense that the past, present, and future are all connected... She really does have quite an eye for the big picture.)

(I can see why she left such an indelible mark on history.)

(But it's also very sad. Her final moments must have been dreadfully painful...)

Anyway, this new pillbox might be able to give us some new functionality, just like the first one.

Let's try it out!