The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria
Book 4: Chapter 10

🔶 Day 3 <C> Private Meeting with Yuri Yanagi – Yuri Yanagi’s Room

The player is on their own.

They possess information that puts them alone at an advantage, and they can’t share it with the NPCs. In the end, the information is only good as ammo for deceiving the others.

So maybe it’s a matter of course that the player ends up fighting a solo battle.

You kill the NPCs to survive, suppressing your guilt the entire way. That’s how this game was meant to be played.

All the same, I’ve been trying to break this cycle. If I don’t, I can’t imagine being able to save Maria, and this Box will also probably break my will.

Still—is what I’m attempting even possible?

In the system of Kingdom Royale, no one can make an ally of anyone else.

Gloomily, I enter Yuri Yanagi’s room. She won’t even make eye contact with me. Though I know it’s pointless, I write a message to her in the notebook.

Yuri Yanagi tears off the paper, crumples it up, and tosses it away without even reading it.

It seems she’s through with me.

I bite my lip.

How can I gain control over her without communicating in words?

Should I do something that shows I still want to help her so that she’ll listen to me? …That’d never work. Even I’m beginning to doubt my own sincerity, so there’s no way I’d get through to her at this point.

“—”

I clench my fists and lower my head. Yuri notices my dejection, but that’s not enough to make her look at me.

Am I already out of moves to make?

Have I already failed?

Iroha is going to demand I join her Group during the upcoming <D> time block. If things go as she plans, I’ll have no hope of becoming the king.

I suddenly notice the notebook sitting on the table. I’m pretty sure it’s Yuri’s, and there’s something written in it:

“Iroha is the Revolutionary.”

I immediately understand the implication.

This is what Yuri is trying to tell me:

—If I do anything funny, I’ll be killed.

That’s most likely true. Iroha can say she’s going to take charge of everything here because she has no fear of dying—because she’s the Revolutionary, in other words. Plus, I’d hazard a guess that Yuri is the King or the Sorcerer. Once she knew the identity of these Classes, Iroha decided she had no worry of being murdered in Kingdom Royale.

If she’s capable of cutting off her own finger, she can also most likely decide to take my life if necessary.

I review my current situation. I’ve gone and made an enemy of pretty much everyone. Yuri, Iroha, and Koudai Kamiuchi are all hostile to me, and as always, I have no idea what Daiya’s thinking. I can’t even rely on Maria, who should be my one ally in all of this.

Under these circumstances, anything I try is going to backfire.

Have I lost all hope of becoming the king by now?

“……Damn.”

I keep telling myself to not give up, but I can’t think of a way to reverse my situation. It’s irredeemable.

Eventually, I just fall to my knees on the spot.

I can’t do this anymore. I’ll let Iroha be the king. I don’t think things will turn out well for her, but it’ll probably still go better than if I took the wheel. I’ll just count on the whims of Koudai Kamiuchi and Daiya, leave my fate to the heavens, and follow along with Iroha’s plan.

Like some rock lying on the ground, I’ll just be here and do nothing.

I…have lost.

I lift my head so I can ask Yuri’s forgiveness.

That’s when I see them. I see Yuri’s eyes as she looks down on me blankly.

—I see her empty eyes.

“—Oh.”

And that’s how it suddenly dawns on me.

“You hate their guts don’t you All those bastards who tricked you and butchered you C’mon they were prepared to off you for their own survival Heh-heh-heh.”

I suddenly know how to answer.

No. I don’t hate them. But… I’ll do whatever it takes to crush them and make them submit.

When I made Yuri suffer yesterday, I thought I was okay with defeating her because the Box had broken me.

That was wrong, though.

I understand now, clearly and without any doubts. I don’t need to be pointlessly kind to everyone, including the person before me. They’re all just NPCs.

I need to save everyone back in the real world.

“Please kill me.”

That’s what the real Yuri said to me during the second game. The Game of Indolence had made her so desperate, she felt she had to say that to me.

But was the Game of Indolence the only reason she suffered so much?

No. She had brought something in with her from the real world that caused her pain. I know that now, because I learned it within the confines of this horrible, pointless Box.

Nothing can change what has already come to pass. There’s no salvation for Yuri now that she has killed Iroha and the others.

But perhaps I can analyze, dissect, and remove what she brought in with her from the real world.

If I do that, won’t it free her from a little of her suffering?

That’s why I will win.

I couldn’t care less about crushing her as an NPC.

That’s my proof that I’m firmly grounded in reality, in normality. It’s my proof that this stupid Game of Indolence hasn’t defeated me.

This means—

“Heh-heh.”

—I haven’t lost at all.

I stand up.

In this game, the player is definitely on their own. I don’t care if I’m alone or whatever, though.

No matter how hopeless the situation, I’m the only one who can destroy the Game of Indolence. No one can save all the others except for me.

If that’s the case…I’ll do it.

I’ll stArt_by forcing Yuri to submit to me, and then I’ll save everyone.

“…What are you smiling about?”

Yuri is still looking at me with those hollow eyes.

Thank you. Those eyes helped me realize it—the source of Yuri’s suffering lies in her familiarity with suppressing her true feelings. I’m now sure I want to do something about it, too.

Still smiling, I deliberately and violently tear off the sheet of paper with “Iroha is the Revolutionary” written on it and rip it up loudly before her eyes.

The hollowness changes to surprise.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. This is good.

I won’t ever let your eyes turn empty again.

“Yuri Yanagi.”

The blunt manner of address makes Yuri look at me, her eyes wide.

“You will become nourishment for the real Yuri,” I tell her.

I can predict how the Yuri I know so well will react.

“……Oh.”

Yep, the coward has gone white. You won’t be able to ignore me now, will you?

“To that end, I’m going to destroy the Group Iroha made. The first thing I’m going to do now is implement a plan to make you leave it.”

Yuri is speechless for a few long seconds, but then she tries to protest.

“Wh-what are you—? There’s no reason I would leave. As if I even could.”

“I said I’m going to make you leave it.”

“If you say that…I-Iroha will kill you, you know…? She might really do it… No, she actually will, okay?”

Yuri is too flustered to worry about Iroha hearing this conversation.

“I know.”

“Then—then why are you saying it?! It’s like committing suicide!”

“Because I’m going to take down Iroha, too, of course. She won’t kill me if I do that,” I say.

Yuri’s eyes go round.

She shakes her head violently.

“That’s… That’s not possible. Don’t you understand how well I know this…?”

Yeah—

There it is.

I’ve finally found the pus within her, the source of her suffering.

“So if I defeat Iroha……”

The reason why her eyes turn empty. It’s—

“If I defeat Iroha, will you be able to overcome your jealousy of her?”

—her feelings of inferiority toward Iroha.

It’s a sentiment I understand very easily as a companion of Daiya’s and Maria’s. I’m constantly surrounded by reminders that I will never be their equal, and the fear of mistakenly assuming my existence is worthless compared with theirs.

This is even worse for Yuri, who unlike me takes second place. Just knowing she could feasibly catch up must be frustrating.

She’s so close but never seems to cross the gap between her and Iroha Shindo.

How painful it must be to be reminded of it.

“Someone as stupid as I am should have just stayed quiet… I’m sorry for any confusion.”

She called herself stupid during the first game. Though she seems incredible and brilliant enough from my point of view, she never has any confidence in herself.

Because in her heart, she compares herself with someone she can never measure up against.

“—Oh.”

I’m sure she must be aware of this herself.

Yuri seems so shaken I almost pity her, and she stands there trembling.

“You wanted to beat Iroha no matter what, didn’t you?” I say, and her shoulders jump. “You wanted to beat Iroha. You wanted to best her for so long. That’s why you wanted to beat her in this game, too. You thought that if you could get her to act according to your plan, maybe you could call it a form of victory, so you decided to make it happen.”

When Yuri was the player, I’m sure the reason she deceived Iroha and went out of her way to wound her with the revelation about her ex-boyfriend was that she wanted to experience the feeling of beating her rival.

“Wh-why are you talking like you know—?”

The panic on her face as she denies this is easy to read, and it has no hint of her usual shrewd acting.

“But while things did go as you had intended, in the end, you still didn’t feel like you’d won.”

“—!!”

“You were overwhelmed, after all. When Iroha was willing to cut off her own finger, the jaw-dropping nature of that act—the difference between her resolve and yours—reminded you that your miserable little plan could never compete with hers.”

“……Stop it.”

“Once you knew how incredible she was, all you could think of was relying on her to get through this alive, yet another reminder of how far she rises above you and your cowardice.”

“Stop.”

“You woke up to the reality that you never had a chance against her in the first place, no matter what you tried. After all, you learned that victory wouldn’t be enough to dispel your inferiority complex; it didn’t vanish even when you stole the boy she had feelings for.”

“I told you to stop it!” she shrieks, and pain runs through my cheek.

…Did she just slap me?

I can’t believe it for a moment. I mean, did Yuri just hit me? Yuri, the one with more self-control than anyone else?

Yuri is wide-eyed, seemingly more shocked by her own actions than anyone. She stares at the hand that slapped me, opening and closing it repeatedly.

“—Oh.”

Her shoulders begin to shake.

“I-I’m sorr—”

Before she can finish, tears are welling up in her eyes.

“……I-I’m sorry. But please…just stop… Don’t say such horrible things anymore… Please don’t hurt me any more… Please… Please.”

I’m sure it’s painful.

It must hurt to confront such ugly emotions head-on like this.

She couldn’t even say these things when her deceptions during the second game came to light.

But…

“I can’t.”

…none of that matters.

In fact, it’s precisely why I have to keep going.

“Ngh… Aaah…”

My cold response makes Yuri crouch down and begin to cry, hiding her face.

“If I turn back now, I won’t be able to help the real you. It’s okay if you cover your face, but don’t plug your ears.”

“U-uuuhh…”

Of course, my chest aches when I see her suffer like this. But my feelings don’t matter, either.

“I’m talking about what happened during the second game when you were in my position.”

Now comes the finishing blow.

“Yuri, you killed Iroha.”

Her sobs come to a halt, and she looks up at me with red eyes.

“……Wh-what are you saying…?”

I don’t grant her a response.

“…M-me? Kill Iroha…? There’s no way I would do something so extreme! I… I am an underhanded person…but I could never do something like that!”

This is definitely coming straight from her heArt_of hearts. I’m sure it’s true. The only reason she could do such a thing is because she was the player while the rest of us, including Iroha, were NPCs.

However, she still murdered her.

Iroha is now aware that Yuri is a despicable girl who deceived and murdered her.

Nothing will ever change that fact.

As skilled as she is at reading others’ faces, Yuri must be able to tell from mine that I’m not lying about her killing Iroha. She doesn’t say anything else and simply sits there, distracted, tears running down her face.

I keep up the pressure.

“Yuri. I’ll explain in more detail later, but you and Iroha both won the game when you were the player, so you’re already set to make it out alive.”

Yuri responds slightly to my statement. It seems she understands me, so I keep going.

“But the way things are now, Iroha knows you murdered her, and she isn’t going to forgive you. And you won’t be able to forgive yourself for doing it. You will have survived, but in the end, you won’t ever be happy. This may be hard to believe, but I want to do something about that.”

I put it out there.

“I have an idea of what we can do.”

Though her tears are still flowing, Yuri looks at me as she appears to come back to her senses.

“You need to reach a certain point. During this round of Kingdom Royale, the two of you need to confess your feelings toward each other, help each other in spite of them, and reach a point where you have a relationship of mutual trust. If the two of you can rely on each other even in this game, then I’m confident you’ll be fine from here on out. Iroha should forgive you.”

I say the next pArt_slowly.

“That’s why you have to tell her all of it. You have to put everything you feel toward Iroha into words.”

I wait for Yuri’s response.

After a period of silence, she finally opens her mouth to speak.

“……I don’t understand,” she replies flatly. “I have no idea what you mean when you say that Iroha and I have already survived or that we’ll be saved if we can trust each other.”

“…I see.”

That’s fair enough. She knows next to nothing about the real situation, so it makes sense that what I said wouldn’t hit home.

“But—”

I raise my head when I hear a contradictory conjunction.

A faint smile has appeared on Yuri’s face.

“—I don’t need to understand, not now. I can’t stand thinking such horrible things just to stay alive… I’m through with it.”

Saying this, she suddenly throws her arms around me.

“So…can I rely on you?”

The strength of her embrace is painful—she isn’t holding back.

She can’t depend on strength so great and unmoderated.

That observation surprises me.

Yuri fought on in her own way all alone, no matter how much suffering it brought her. She always seemed so anxious and uneasy, and through it all, this girl still persevered without losing hope. When she was the player, the guilt of deceiving, cornering, and killing the NPCs threatened to crush her, but in the end, she still managed to recover her will to fight and win.

That’s the strong girl Yuri Yanagi is.

“Help…me.”

And yet, the only option she has now is to trust in me.

All she can do is cling to the faint hope in front her, unable to exert any control.

In that way, she is just the tiniest bit similar to her.

To Nana Yanagi.

“Okay. I’ll help you.”

But I won’t get “Yuri” and “Yanagi” mixed up in my mind, not anymore.

In order to help the Yuri here with me now, I return her embrace and tell her:

“I swear—I will help everyone.”