Yamiyo no Hotaru

Chapter 24

Water and sewage systems are a kind of lifeline for any city. Water is necessary for daily life, and if a large population lives in one place, the amount of wastewater is naturally enormous. Then, if a large amount of wastewater is simply poured down without a plan, it will become a source of epidemics, so how to purify and dispose of it in a place far from urban areas has been considered important even in the cities of my previous world.

Fortunately, the capital of Fuso-kuni has the most well-developed water supply and sewage system in the country. Thanks to the blessings of the spiritual veins, the capital has succeeded in securing safe drinking water and water for daily use from underground water and rivers. The water resources are so abundant that even the common people can bathe in public bathhouses in the inner part of the capital.

On the other hand, the treatment of wastewater is also surprisingly advanced. The sewage is disposed of through a vast sewage system made of lead, stone, and bricks, which is separate from the water supply system, to a place far from the capital.

Wait, isn't that just a drip? Well, no need to say that. It is true that there are some parts of technology that is comparable to modern technology, but on average, the technology level of this world and this country does not exceed the medieval level at best. Advanced filtration and purification technology are not absent, but it is still in its infancy. Frankly speaking, people should consider themselves quite lucky to have a water supply and sewerage system as good as that of Rome. At least there is no sewage spraying from above when walking around.

But then again, managing the water supply in such a city has a certain profit motive.

The use of well water is taxed by the city, and public bathhouses are also taxed by both the owner and the user. In fact, there are even publicly operated bathhouses. Of course, this is not for the public welfare but for revenue. There is even a tax on flush toilets, and in order to increase the tax revenue, the Imperial Court even made a ridiculous plan to convert all the toilets in the capital to flush toilets at one time. The management of waterworks is a money-making tree.

...At the same time, the cost of managing a too-vast water system was also enormous.

Fuso-kuni is a rather small nation, just as most of the undemocratic nations in the previous world in the middle to early modern period were small governments like a night watchman state. In other words, if the budget is not allocated to defense and food production, the country will be destroyed by the monsters. Therefore, the government doesn't care about the welfare of the people...

Anyway, Tachibana Trading Company is one of several organizations that leased the water rights of the capital from the Imperial Court. Together with other nobles and merchant associations, they hired laborers and mercenaries to manage and operate the waterworks. The problem is that in the past few months, some of them have gone deep into the sewers for cleaning and repair and have not come back. They sent out a group of mercenaries twice after that, but they were not heard from again.

"Since they are in control of the project, they wanted to solve the problem themselves without crying out to the imperial court..."

At the entrance to a river on the outskirts of the city, a sewer that drains relatively unpolluted water into the river, I blurted out the story behind this request.

The head of the company, who was entertaining Fat-mon and Gorilla-sama at his mansion, seemed to be a merchant who did not miss the opportunity. He immediately tried to use the power of the Kizuki family, with whom he had formed a friendship, to solve this little-known problem. The fact that the Kizuki family had just caused a little commotion at the Oumi family's mansion may have been a factor in their decision.