The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria
Book 4: Chapter 6

🔶 Day 1 <C> Private Meeting with Iroha Shindo – Iroha Shindo’s Room

I have no idea how my interaction with Daiya will play out. But for now, I have to mentally switch gears.

My next Private Meeting is with the first person I need to beat—to control. Iroha Shindo. I already know what I need to say to pull it off.

There’s a reason I want to get Iroha under control as soon as possible: She’s the one with the greatest ability to change the nature of a situation.

That’s why I need to make my move before she does something to hurt my cause.

Judging by what I saw earlier, she shouldn’t be totally closed to what I have to say.

I’m in good shape here.

Telling myself that, I head to Iroha’s room.

“……”

So what’s up with this? Iroha is standing there imposingly like she’s waiting for an enemy, arms crossed and blank-faced.

“Can I ask you something? Why did you pick me for your Private Meeting?”

She wasn’t wary like this in the common area, I don’t think.

Despite my uneasiness, I answer, “Because you’re the first person I wanted to win over, Iroha.”

It’s not a lie.

“…Iroha?” Iroha narrows her eyes suspiciously.

“Um, is something wrong?”

“…It’s just that most other students call me President when they meet me for the first time. Meaning I’m not used to people calling me by my first name out of the blue. Apparently, it’s not easy to get cozy with me.”

Now that I think about it, I called her President, too, until she told me not to…

“But enough about that… Why do you want me on your side first? …Actually, you don’t need to explain. I’m guessing you’ve worked out that I’m trying to manipulate how things play out here?”

“……Wha—?”

I’m caught off guard by how quickly her mind works.

“You don’t want me to go off and do something that puts you in a difficult situation. That’s why you’re in a rush to have me join your cause.”

“Yeah, but…”

What’s going on here? It’s like she predicted what I was about to say to her.

“This is just how I see things, but let’s say I did simply nod my head and go along with what someone said, and things panned out in the end. All the same, even if luck did end up on our side, I couldn’t respect that type of person. Leaving your fate in the hands of another is the same as shutting off your brain. Don’t you agree, Hoshino?”

“……Um—”

“It’s just not in my nature. I’m not into following orders, dancing in the palm of someone’s hand… So where were we? Oh yeah, you were trying to gain control over me and then call me your ally.”

Of course.

Of course she’s already got me pegged.

“So, well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Hoshino, but I won’t do anything under your leadership. I’m going to use my own head so we can act together.”

“…‘We’?”

Iroha doesn’t answer the obvious question of who this “we” is referring to. There’s only one person who would’ve already joined forces with Iroha at this point.

Yuri Yanagi.

The one who once tried to murder Iroha with Magic.

…This is most definitely not a good turn of events.

“I’ll be honest with you. I generally wanted to believe what you said in the common area.”

“…Huh?”

“But Yuri pointed something out during our Private Meeting just now. She said it seems like you know more about us than we do about you. Well…Yuri and I are fairly well-known, so you may have heard a few rumors about us, but it feels like your knowledge is much more in-depth than that.”

“That’s—”

Iroha doesn’t give me a chance to speak, though. “I don’t mind if you know about us. I understand you’re in a special position here, given how you knew you were the Knight. The problem is that you tried to hide it. You didn’t immediately make it clear that you’re in possession of information that gives you an advantage in the game.”

“Th-that’s not what I… You’ve got it wrong. I didn’t say anything because I can’t just talk about that stuff right off the bat!”

“Yeah, that may be true. But there’s no guarantee of that. We have no way of telling if you’re the one who set this game up, are on board with it, or are a dissenter. We want to believe it’s the last of those three, but if we’re wrong, we pay with our lives. You can see why it’s too dangerous for us to just vaguely follow what you say, right?”

That’s why she won’t follow me.

Ah, dammit… It’s a natural conclusion.

“Relax. We won’t completely stonewall your ideas. We’ll hear you out. But we’re going to judge the truth of what you say for ourselves. Our lives are on the line, so of course we can’t blindly place our trust in the words of someone else. That’s why we can’t be your allies. Sorry.”

It’s a sound rationale to me, and it’s probably the most correct choice for Iroha and Yuri. It also still conceivably leaves me in a position to do something.

But only conceivably—since I’m powerless now.

We’re already at a dead end here.

“……Iroha.”

“What? You’re still going to try to justify yourself? Go ahead. I’ll listen, of course.”

“……”

Truthfully, I don’t have any problem with laying everything out for Iroha like I’m doing with Daiya. She’s capable of calm, rational judgments, so she’d most likely take my story relatively well. At the very least, she would probably lend me a hand in my goal of ending the game without any deaths.

But—

“…I’ve changed my mind.”

—things aren’t going to work out that way now.

“I see.”

I mean, Iroha is going to tell Yuri everything, and once Yuri’s opinions get added to the mix, the situation will inevitably change.

The reason is that unlike Iroha, who can take a detached perspective even in regards to herself, Yuri will refuse to believe any uncomfortable truths. For example, I can’t imagine her accepting the idea that she’s currently an NPC, or that the real her now bears the weight of murder on her conscience.

What will Yuri do when she hears me saying things she doesn’t want to hear?

She’ll reject it. She’ll view me as an enemy.

And then she’ll draw in Iroha and set out to win Kingdom Royale.

In other words—run headlong toward murder.

That’s why I’m at an impasse here.

“”

We still have time in our meeting.

But I can’t find anything else to say.

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