This whole chapter merits a re-read, so I’m definitely going back through it. Now that I know what to look for, that should help a ton. I gotta do my reading for 十画館の殺人 this weekend anyway, so I’ll have an F&B snack to look forward to.
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Read the first three chapters! This volume has been exciting so far, there has been a lot of action going on. It’s making it hard to put the book down sometimes 
Chapter 3
Jeoffrey (with help from Kaito’s decorating skills) manages to get the captain of the merchant ship to let down his guard enough to spill some information. That conversation confused me as well so I had to read it a second time. I think part of what tripped me up was trying to figure out if the past tense was referring to the historical past or the past in relation to the 16th century since they’re both past tense to Kaito. My understanding of the Lisbon part is that attacking Lisbon is difficult partly because you have to traverse a river to get there, and if you push that far in and there’s a lull in the wind you can’t retreat. Not necessarily good news for people looking to attack from the sea but definitely good information to get a hold of.
Something I didn’t know was what the other ship captain meant by キタイ人. Contextually it seemed like he was probably referring to China but I hadn’t heard that before.
Looking it up it looks like Cathay was a word used in this time period to refer to part of China.
Small question
I wasn’t sure about this line (I think it’s page 66 or 67?)
戦うかどうかはリスボンの心一つ -------本当に攻めにくい街なんですよ。
What does 心一つ here mean in the context of this sentence?
I read it as the flashback starting at “何か出てきたーっ” and ending at “死んだ方がマシだと思った。” In my version there’s some extra spacing around that paragraph that I think might be related but I’m not sure 
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Of course Kaito had the same trouble when thinking about this, that’s why he referred to that event as “truth”:
樽が焼かれるのは『史実』なのだから、自分の進言が未来を変えることにはならないだろう。
I wondered about this as well but entering it in Jisho in katakana gave me キタイ - Jisho.org which points to Khitan people - Wikipedia , a people of Mongolian nomads.
I did not get this either when reading it yesterday, but when I look at 心 now it gives me “inner strength” - could that possibly be the intended meaning here? 心 しん - Jisho.org (note the different reading as well)
EDIT: I asked my senpai about it and she came up with 心一つ(こころひとつ)とは？ 意味や使い方 - コトバンク #4: “that’s all that we think about”
Sounds pretty plausible to me 
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Chapter 4 comments:
We get the first time travel issues… Kaito notices that the history that he currently lives in is slightly different from the history he knows from his history books… He doesn’t spell it out explicitly but I think they already altered history because Gloria left the harbour earlier than planned (and got into the storm, and went to France, and so on…) so there are lots of opportunities for the world to have diverged from his “history books” world. And of course he is worried because he might not be able to correctly predict stuff, which would make him suspicious, and would Drake and Jeoffrey drop him then, or even punish him? I can totally relate to his feelings. Although I’d expect that he cannot live as a fake prophet through 20-odd volumes without this becoming an issue, so maybe he needs to open up at least to Jeoffrey at some point, maybe when he gained a lot more trust through other means, like e.g. taking care of the sick crew.
Anyways, for a moment I was really worried that Kaito would succumb to the cheesy offer of the Spanish captain, but luckily Kaito’s being head over heels with Jeoffrey helps him stay on track 
The explanations of the exact deviation in history was pretty tricky to follow, I thought (and the fact that it was already past midnight did not exactly help either 
). I had to take notes to fully understand the two alternatives. I guess I will read a bit of Wikipedia tomorrow to learn more about what really happened…
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I’ve added a few links to the main OP, especially for the historical bits in Ch. 3 and 4. I hope they’ll help you get through those parts faster 
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Chapter 4 Thoughts
In this chapter we finally get more info on what might be going on time travel wise. There are discrepancies from the history Kaito is familiar with, opening up the possibility that he’s in some sort of parallel universe where things differ slightly and his memories of what’s supposed to happen in the future are less reliable than he thought. This really complicates things as it adds the risk that any predictions he makes about the future might not end up being accurate, which threatens the position he’s managed to build for himself. It’s a good thing he managed to get a hold of this information now before he’s had the chance to make a lot of predictions so he can be more cautious. Even though he got cursed out quite a bit by Kaito it turns out Vincente actually really helped him out here
As for the specifics I’m not super confident I’m understanding it correctly. Is he saying that in his original timeline the missionaries who should have arrived in Japan first, as well as the ones who should have been behind the Tensho embassy, were the Jesuits and in this timeline for some reason it was the Franciscans instead?
That makes sense, thanks for that and the clarification on キタイ, Jisho was somehow the one place I didn’t check
Yeah, I think Kaito has changed a lot more than he realizes. On the Spanish side him meeting Vincente has completely changed his actions as well. That makes me wonder about the changes that appear to have occured before Kaito got there, like instead of his thought that this is a parallel world, maybe there’s the possibility someone else could have time slipped back further in the past and their actions caused the changes.
Alrighty, finished my re-read of chapter 3 and read through chapter 4 this weekend. Thank you so much for the ch. 3 explanations, @NicoleIsEnough; going back through everything was extremely clear. 
Chapter 4 I think I got through okay; there was definitely room to get lost there, but Nicole and @pyororon’s thoughts and impressions seem to match up with mine, so I think I got through everything okay.
It is quite interesting that the first big historical “wrinkle” we’ve seen is which country, Spain or Portugal, made it to Japan first. I’m extremely excited to see what else ends up different; this book is causing me to dig up school knowledge from like a decade ago, haha. My history teacher would be extremely proud of me. XD
That’s what I’m thinking as well. Kaito needs to build up a rapport with everyone that doesn’t include his ability to predict the future, because he’s on extremely shaky ground there, regardless of this being an alternate timeline or not. One the truth inevitably comes out, he’ll need people on his side who know him as a person and not as a means to an end.
“Hey, kid, if you help me escape, I’ll, uh, get you a job. A paying job! You’re not getting paid now, right?”
“Oh, you’re not interested? Then, uh, how about this: you can become a monk with my cousin!!”
“Listen, we’re both Catholics, so I’ll go ahead and tell you my master plan: let’s set fire to the only thing keeping us afloat in the middle of the ocean and we’ll just swim for it if we see someplace that looks good. 
”
Kaito immediately leaves and tells Jeoffrey every single aspect of the plan
I was imagining that trope of the person you’re talking about sneezing as Kaito yelled at him. Vicente’s on his ship and just suddenly has a fit. 
Yes, that’s what I understood as well. From my shaky remembrance of history class, it should have been the Portuguese to make inroads with Japan and not Spain.
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That’s great to hear! Well then, onward and upward 
I double-checked my notes again (this passage got so complicated that I had to write down some aspects) and also re-read a passage (for other reasons) that happened to touch upon this as well. So the thing is that there is this treaty of Tordesillas (and the subsequent treaty of Zaragoza which I don’t think was mentioned in the book) which divides the world into two parts and assigns them to Spain and Portugal respectively. Now the Franciscans are associated with Spain while the Jesuits are associated with Portugal, which means that usually they would become missionaires in their respective parts of the world. But now Philip II is king of both Spain and Portugal which seems to give him options to shake things up a bit. [So far for the “real” history, now we deviate into the book’s parallel world.] He seems to have been annoyed about the Jesuits because they accumulated a lot of power, and so he decided to give Japan to the Franciscans, although it technically still belongs to the Portuguese part.
According to Katsuya’s theory there is an innumerable amount of parallel worlds, and maybe he just happened to find one where this little detail has already been changed - not due to a time traveller but due to “natural” branching off of worlds that seems to happen all the time according to that theory.
Same! I hope they encounter some less confusing aspects though
Haha, make this maybe 3.5 decades for me And I don’t think we learned about these aspects of history in so much detail back then…
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I just arrived at this section. 
Basically, Jeoffrey announces to the Portuguese sailors that Nigel will be their captain for the trip back to port. Hearing this, Nigel protests about them not being likely to do as told. Jeoffrey replies that if it’s him as captain they will listen (to his orders).
After that exchange, Jeoffrey whispers his thoughts/profiling about the Portuguese crew to Nigel, giving him the motivations for the order. Nigel realizing they’re not Spanish but Portuguese sailors, offers some further reflections on the viability of this (religious affiliation being a major concern).
This is where it gets heated as Jeoffrey jokingly dismisses Nigel’s fears. There’s another descriptive clue that Nigel is keeping his voice low, though he’s clearly quite angry about having to manage an enemy crew (I guess mutiny is no laughing matter after all). But, clearly, he’s terrible at keeping things under wraps and the Portuguese crew start to talk among themselves due to the display.
I think it’s fair to say, in the end, they didn’t manage to keep the argument hidden from view.
As for Nigel being given leeway to argue with Jeoffrey about his orders,
even as Kaito got punished for refusing an order, that seems to be more complex than simply being about a breach in hierarchy. It’s quite clear from the discussion that Nigel is playing the role of a break to Jeoffrey’s at times reckless plans. As his right hand onboard, I guess, it also comes with the ability to speak up about things affecting the ship and crew.
Not sure that’s very realistic or not, but it makes for a fun dynamic between these two. ^>^
Well that’s my take on this episode. 
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Thank you! The situation and your conclusions make sense to me; even if Nigel wasn’t shouting per se, I bet him being angry about the situation was communicated clearly to the rest of everyone else.
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Okay, I’ve got a few spare moments, so I wanted to type out some questions I had after re-reading chapter 3. All of these should be grammar/vocab related, not plot.
Chapter 3 Qs
(興味があったのはドレイクだし、個人的に気になる人間が現れるなんて思ってもみなかったしな）
First page of chapter 3. Kaito’s thinking about how he’s never seen Jeoffrey’s name in the history books and reassuring himself that it wasn’t like he’d read every history book. My question lies with the bolded second half of the sentence. “The one I was interested in was Drake, and I didn’t think about [when/where] other specific people I was interested in”? Not entirely sure what to make of that 思ってもみなかった.
p58/Kindle 25%:
カディス襲撃が成功することは本に書いてある。海斗は記憶を辿ってみた。この事件について、ジェフリー達に伝え損なっている情報はないだろうか。
What’s this compound highlighted here? My searches haven’t brought back anything useful.
p60/Kindle 26%:
「フェリペ陛下はポルトガルの王でもあらせられる。ということは、今やキタイもスペインのものではありませんか」
Is the でも “even” in this case? Even the king of Portugal? And the あらせられる should be 尊敬語 according to my dictionary, but I’m not sure I understand how it’s working with the rest of the sentence. Normally my thought would be “His Majesty Philip allows even the king of Portugal [to remain king]” or something like that, but あらせられる doesn’t appear to be in causative form?
p68/Kindle 30%:
「カサージャ殿は奥床しい方だ。勇猛果敢で聞こえたスペイン軍なら、たとえ海からでも困難を乗り越え、必ずや攻略を果たしたことでしょう」
“Lord カサージャ is [too] modest. If it were the dauntless Spanish army, they would be able to overcome even difficulties[/attacks] coming by sea, and would surely conquer their enemy.” Does that sound right? Have I misread anything?
p69/Kindle 30%:
一年から無敵艦隊はリスボンに本拠地を移していること。それはポルトガル人が製造するタラの干乾しなどの食料や飲み水を詰める樽を積載するためだということなどだ。
So what the heck is タラ here? And what does it have to do with 干乾し?
Edit: one extra question. Don’t have the book on me, Kindle 27%:
ここでは望むべくもないものばかりだ。
This is Kaito’s thought after considering how to decorate Jeoffrey’s table to impress the Spanish captain and dismissing it as stuff he wouldn’t be able to find on the Gloria. Does べくもないhave any particular nuance, or is it just, “[He] only had things [he] didn’t want here.”
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Chapter 3 Qs
p1:
Please not that it’s 気になる and not 気に入る. It usually has a negative nuance, like “bothersome people” maybe?
All together “…, and I did not even try to think about individually appearing troublemakers or something”, maybe?
p58:
It’s meaning 2 of 損なう - Jisho.org here (the auxiliary verb case) “failed to transmit”
p60:
Yes, it’s honorific あらせられる: - Jisho.org He was also king of Portugal.
p68:
In my experience なら is very often factual, not hypothetical (almost like は). The last part is in past tense, so I would phrase this as “As we’re talking about the Spanish Army, they even overcame difficulties that came from the sea and definitely accomplished to defeat their enemy, no?” - but not 100% sure on that one.
p69:
I think タラ is 鱈 - Jisho.org (denoting a group of various fish), making it dried fish food rations.
Extra:
べくもない - Jisho.org “Only things he could not possibly expect to be here.” (i.e. the stuff that his mother uses for her tea parties.) See 望む - Jisho.org #2
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Due to an unforeseen event I was not able to read on Sunday and could not read a lot on Monday either. So I only managed to finish chapter 5 today.
Chapter 5 comments:
Finally Jeoffrey and co. are able to meet up with Drake. (How this was achieved without internet and even without telephones or radio transmission is really a miracle to me ). Anyways, they hand over the newly “acquired” ship which Drake is pretty happy about, and Kaito can demonstrate his knowledge on cannons. We also meet Drake’s own cabin boy, a 10-year-old whirlwind going by the nickname of “Frenzy” 
.
Towards the end of the chapter, Kaito gets to predict the future once again, and “foresees” a big fire in the harbour of Lisbon. Drake immediately prepares to fulfill this prophecy. Let’s hope that Kaito can move his new world a bit closer to the world he knows from history books…
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Is it just me, or do these chapters feel like they’re getting shorter? I literally just finished chapter 5 myself; I think it’s God himself telling me to get back to work. -.-;
I couldn’t believe my eyes when they introduced Drake’s cabin boy as “Frenzy”. What a nickname for a 10-year-old.
I had a few questions for chapter 5, so I’ll see if I can post them later today. I have a bunch for chapter 4, which I really need to ask, but there’s a bunch… o.o; Takes a while to type them up, haha.
Chapter 3 Qs
Ah, that was probably the mix-up in my head.
Ah, I see. I was over-complicating things.
Ah, so maybe it’s like, “if we’re talking about…”? I’ll need to review my なら。
Thank you so much for the help!
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They are a bit irregular in length; ch. 5 was pretty short but ch. 6 will be more than 30 pages again. Then we get a shorter ch. 7 and a longer ch. 8, and two very short chapters will conclude the book.
But for chapter 5, it was not only shorter but also easy to read (as there was basically no complicated history talk) in my opinion.
At first I totally didn’t realize; only when the name was given in kanji as well I was like 
But it seems to be an adequate nickname fwiw xD
Yep, keigo does that for you. 
I have a language partner who is a middle-aged male office worker, and especially early on he just wrote full keigo messages to me Even now he still does that when he is asking for something or the like. I think it’s simply so hardwired that he cannot let go. On the other hand it’s really interesting to decode like 3-4 lines of text and in the end the meaning just boils down to “agreed” or “please do” or something It still gives me pause at times but I feel that I’m slowly getting better at it.
Yep, that would be my take on it as well. (which may still be wrong, so grain of salt and all )
No worries at all! Answering your questions is a bit like reading the book once more, which is great fun
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Some chapter 5 questions:
(Also, not a question, but I was surprised to see that only one month had passed since they set out from Plymouth. Felt like longer.)
Chapter 5Qs
(Can go look up page numbers later, sorry.)
(Kindle 45%)
非常時に重んじられるべきは儀礼よりも実務です
Jeoffrey’s just offfered the Stella Maris to Drake. “In an emergency, practical matters (letting Drake use the captured ship) should be observed before formalities (presenting the ship formally to the Queen).” Does that sound right?
(Kindle 47%)
スペイン人の船長はまだしも、船員達はみなポルトガル人なので、身代金が払われるアテもなさそうなのです
Jeoffrey’s asking about releasing the captured ship’s prisoners here. The highlighted should be something akin to “not being worth the effort”, right? Or is it closer to “not likely”?
(Kindle 48%)
よくやったーージェフリーはこちらを見つめているカイト素早く片目を瞑ってみせた。カイトもしてやったりと唇の端を上げる。
Kaito’s just finangled a bunch of new cannons from Drake. Is the highlighted saying that Kaito also winked?
(Kindle 50%)
「愚鈍な人間というのは『そこに何がある』と言われるまで、何も目に入っていないものよ。
No specific grammar or vocab here; this is a flashback to the doctor who was taking care of Kaito after he was found and what his wife said to Jeoffrey about Kaito. I remember the comments being positive, but this sentence doesn’t read like that? Who is 愚鈍な人間 referring to?
(Next paragraph)
卓越した卜占の能力の一部なのかもしれないが、カイトは自分が見るべきもの、見ておかなくてはならないものを即座に選び取ることができる。
Jeoffrey’s commenting here on Kaito’s sharp eyes and penchant for picking things up. I guess what I’m looking at here is what みておく is doing. That’s 見て置く, right?
(A few sentences after)
（同時にその力は我々にも恩恵を与えてくれる。カイトの忠告は、大体において的を得ているからな）
What’s that bolded part? I haven’t been able to find anything, expression or otherwise, starting with 的, which makes me think I may be parsing it wrong.
Not on any particular page, but I’ve seen [place name]岬沖 - 岬 refers to Cape [place], so how does 沖 interact with that? The open sea/water by Cape Wherever?
As always, thank you all for all the help!
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Ch5Qs
Kindle 45% sounds good to me.
Kindle 47%: There is 当てもない - Jisho.org - random, aimless - but I have no real clue how that fits into the sentence. Maybe it means that it’s totally unclear whether it will be paid or not? So maybe “unlikely” might fit quite ok…
Kindle 48%: I think it’s this: してやったり - Jisho.org
Kindle 50%: This is not a comment about Kaito but about inattentive/stupid people in general, is my take. “They just don’t notice stuff” is my understanding. It’s being contrasted to Kaito’s behavior who asked a lot of questions at the doctor’s office about tools and stuff he noticed there.
Next paragraph: Yep, that’s 見て置く- things that he should see, things that he must see in advance.
A few sentences after: You’re parsing it right, but you need to work on your Jisho foo, I guess 的を得る - Jisho.org
Yep, that’s my interpretation as well. The waters around Cape Wherever.
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I’m a little out of order, but chapter 4 Qs:
Chapter 4 Qs
(Again, no page numbers; sorry! I can go back to grab those if necessary.)
カサージャ
So I guess first things first, how should this guy’s name be romanized? Casalla? Been a while since my Spanish lessons.
(Kindle 36%)
「言葉に関して言えば、必要に迫られた人間はいくらでも話せるようになる。私はフランス語と英語を使うことができるが、それも貿易の仕事を始めてから学んだものだ。
カサージャ船長 is reassuring Kaito that he can still learn Japanese if he wants to go back to Japan. This 迫られた is 迫る, correct? How is it being used in this sentence? “Speaking of the language, people who are forced to need it can learn as much as they’d like.”?
…Wow, is that really it? I actually had more questions, but like @NicoleIsEnough mentioned before, me going back and re-reading them made everything clear. 
One thing I will note here for posterity since it took me a bit to look up: レグア = league (unit of distance). Didn’t show up in my usual J-E dictionaries for some reason.
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Chapter 5 Qs
Are you sure? That doesn’t seem to fit the sentence.
Ah, that would make sense.
「愚鈍な人間というのは『そこに何がある』と言われるまで、何も目に入っていないものよ。
Very roughly: “As for stupid people and going as far as to ask ‘what’s that’, [the stupid people] don’t notice [/care about the things they could be asking about].” Does that sound even remotely right?
Aaaaagh. Dang it! orz
（同時にその力は我々にも恩恵を与えてくれる。カイトの忠告は、大体において的を得ている からな）
Roughly: “At the same time, we have been blessed. Kaito’s advice/warnings were generally relevant[/to the point/useful to our situation].”?
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I was thinking Casadia in my head, I guess this point is on you:
Kindle 36%: That was a tricky sentence for me as well You got it pretty much. If we’re talking details, I would rather say “People who are forced by need can speak it just fine.” but that’s just nitpicking.
Oh I really wish this were true
It’s a neat trick, innit?
I couldn’t find that one either in Jisho, only on Wikipedia, I think. I had already added it to the list of terms in the OP (together with katakana) but it turns out that it’s pretty much impossible to search in this list 
If you (or anybody else for that matter) have an idea on how we could make this list more accessible, please speak up!
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