The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria
Book 4: Chapter 13

Day 5 <B> The Common Area

Yuri is dead.

She was executed because she didn’t come to the common area when it was time.

Yesterday, I saw how she was so dazed, she didn’t try to go back to her own room, so I was afraid this might happen. It looks like she actually went through with it.

Yuri committed suicide passively, and now she’s gone.

“Aw man… This really blows! My precious prize gone before I could take it! My sweet Yuri’s cherry!”

Despite his words, Koudai Kamiuchi is grinning, holding his head in his hands in an empty show of regret that fills every fiber of my being with utter loathing.

The fact that he’s total scum doesn’t really matter, though.

After all, I don’t have a goal anymore.

The only thing I have left is the guilt I feel toward Iroha and Yuri. All I have are my thoughts for the two of them, who died because of my mistaken belief I could be king.

Maybe I should have done the same thing as Yuri…

I’m so lost as to what to do now that I’m even considering it. I can’t think about anything except how my remaining few days of life are out of my control.

That’s why I keep apologizing to them in my mind.

I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry.

Of course, the two who died were NPCs, so I can see them again in the real world if I make it through this alive. But that doesn’t mean the guilt I have within me is in any way false. Yeah… Now I finally know how it must have felt to have to kill the NPCs when they were the players. I know how Yuri and Iroha must have felt.

The truth is, knowing they’re NPCs doesn’t do a whit to make one feel any better.

I slump over the table.

There’s a single hemp sack on it. Inside is an unusable portable device, along with the orange, beige, and green watches that Iroha had kept wearing even after what happened.

Daiya puts the watches on himself.

Seeing this, I throw my own light-blue watch at him. Daiya glances at me but just wraps it around his wrist without saying a word.

“The watch is great, but I hope you brought what you promised,” he says.

I take the rations out of the sack I brought from my room and lay them on the table without a response. I do it not simply because I’ve given up, but because I can imagine it might mean my life if I don’t.

I made sure to keep enough for myself, so I won’t die right away, but this means I’ve lost the ability to imitate the Revolutionary.

Kingdom Royale has returned to its original cruel state. There’s no way to survive now other than for each of us to pursue victory. I wouldn’t be surprised if Daiya and Koudai Kamiuchi try to kill me.

Well, should I try to win, too?

……It won’t work. I’m the Knight, and Maria is the Prince. We can’t both get through this alive. Trying to win for me would be the same as asking Maria to die.

Even if she is just an NPC, I would never ask for that.

There’s no way I can beat Daiya and Koudai Kamiuchi like this.

That’s how I know I’m going to die.

“……”

…I’m going to die?

Yeah. It’ll probably come down to that.

So—why?

I raise my head.

I look at Maria.

All four of us here know I’m most likely going to be killed. Naturally, that includes Maria.

Even so, she isn’t doing anything.

Maria. The one who would cast away her life so readily for the sake of others. What’s more, this didn’t stArt_just now. She’s barely done or said anything since yesterday.

That isn’t possible.

“Maria.”

I say her name. I know she must have heard me, but she doesn’t so much as glance in my direction.

Maria is secretly biting her lip, and nothing else.

• Yuri Yanagi, compulsorily executed for failure to return

to the common area by 12:10. Died via decapitation.

Day 5 <C> Private Meeting with Maria Otonashi – Maria Otonashi’s Room

Why isn’t Maria doing anything?

There can only be one answer.

Just like me, she has no idea what to do.

But why is she like this? Has something crushed her the way Iroha’s and Yuri’s deaths crushed me?

When I enter her room, the mood is, unsurprisingly, a little uncomfortable, and Maria doesn’t even greet me.

“Maria?”

“……”

…Something definitely happened.

“…Can I…sit next to you?”

I wouldn’t even bother to ask something like that normally. We just sit next to each other without any protest.

But Maria frowns, sitting on the bed.

“No, don’t sit.”

I can’t believe what she just said.

“…Why?”

Maria closes her mouth. She won’t look me in the face, perhaps because she doesn’t want to answer. I can’t let this go, though.

“…Answer me.”

Not even that gets her to open her mouth. But after I stare at her silently for a moment, she finally, grudgingly, begins to speak.

“I’ve been watching your actions.”

She continues, still not looking at me:

“As you’ve been doing your thing in this game, I’ve been watching and waiting for the moment when you would come to me for help. You fought down Shindo and the others all by yourself, created a foundation for explaining the Box, and even had victory in your grasp for a moment. Koudai Kamiuchi’s actions ruined all that in the end, but in my mind, you were spectacular. That led me to a conclusion.”

Maria tells me:

“You are not Kazuki Hoshino.”

Is that the reason for her hesitant attitude…?

“You…are Kazuki, aren’t you?”

She definitely said something along those lines during our Private Meeting on the second day.

I didn’t really read too deeply into it, though. After all, Maria told me that even when I was affected by the Week in the Mud, she could tell which one was the real me, so I was sure she knew.

That’s why this has to be a joke.

“…What are you saying, Maria?”

Despite this, Maria doesn’t tell me she’s kidding like she usually does. No matter how long I wait.

“Kazuki.”

Instead, she says:

“Our Classes are enemies, right?”

“…What’re you saying? Yeah, our Classes are enemies, but… Huh?”

Could this be what Maria is trying to say?

“Do you think I’m going to kill you……?”

For some reason, Maria doesn’t shake her head at this completely ridiculous question.

“C-cut it out… There’s no way I could ever—”

“Kazuki.” Maria cuts me off midsentence. “I thought I could predict your actions. We did spend an entire lifetime together, after all. But your behavior in Kingdom Royale has betrayed all my expectations. That’s why I can’t be sure anymore. You may not do what I think you will.”

“……”

“The victory condition you described was most likely true. But that turned out to be a failure. What are you going to do now?”

“I…still don’t know…”

“I’m an NPC, right? Even if you kill me, that doesn’t mean the real Maria Otonashi will die, correct?”

“What’re you saying…? That that’s going to make me…kill you?”

“That’s not what I think. I can’t imagine you ever taking my life.”

“Then…”

“As I said, though, that’s just one of my assumptions, and those have already proven to be incorrect. I have no way of knowing what you’re thinking now that you’ve distanced yourself from me.”

“That’s…”

I approach Maria to try to untangle this misunderstanding.

“Stay away from me.”

Maria rejects me with an outstretched palm.

More than her words or her attitude, it’s her troubled expression that stops me in my tracks.

“Whoever you are, wearing Kazuki Hoshino’s face—you scare me.”

I haven’t relied on Maria in this game.

I knew that if I relied on her, possibly the weakest participant in this game, it could lead to my defeat. I knew that if I didn’t suppress my urge to seek her help, didn’t do away with my weakness, then I couldn’t win.

I was able to do it because of my experiences in the previous games.

I never would have been able to pull it off without this wealth of information. That’s why my actions must seem completely out of character from Maria’s point of view.

I thought she would’ve been okay with that, though.

I mean, she is Maria, right? She knows me better than anyone else does, right?

I had thought it was impossible for her to misread me, that she would accept me no matter what I did.

That was my support.

My faith in our mutual trust is what kept me going.

But—

“……Why?”

I see Maria’s bewildered face before me.

I brought this on myself.

I get it.

I know why Maria hasn’t done anything.

I’ve already lost her trust.

There’s no need for Maria to help someone she can’t even identify.

That’s why she won’t aid me anymore.

………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Really?

I mean, this is Maria.

The person before me is Maria, someone willing to sacrifice herself to help others, no matter who they are.

Would she really abandon me…?

Just because she doubts that I’m Kazuki Hoshino?

“Are you really okay with this?” I ask her. “…At this rate, I’m going to die, you know?”

Maria’s expression seems truly puzzled and fearful.

But why is she so confused? Why is she so afraid? She shouldn’t react like this even if I were her enemy. If she truly thinks of me as a foe, she’d have much more control over herself.

So what is going through Maria’s head?

“……The way you are now, you can probably make it through this on your own, don’t you think?” Maria says with her gaze lowered.

“No way. I can’t kill you, and I can’t just let myself get killed, either. There’s no way I can defeat Daiya like thi—”

Wait.

It’s absolutely impossible for me to kill Maria. I can’t win Kingdom Royale while she’s around. Those are unquestionable facts.

You can put it another way, though.

I have a chance of survival if Maria isn’t here.

“……Maria.”

When she raises her head, I ask:

“Are you thinking of killing yourself?”

Maria gazes at me silently in response.

“Are you trying to let yourself die like Yuri did? Just to do what little you can to keep me alive?”

I continue speaking as she remains silent.

“Because the way I am now, it seems like I can probably kill the NPC Daiya…?”

After staring at me this entire time, Maria’s expression softens. “The thought did enter my mind. I mean, I am an NPC, so it doesn’t matter if I die. But all I really did was consider it.”

“Well, stop it…! I don’t want to win the game at all.”

“Because of me, right? If I wasn’t here, you’d probably be working harder to save your own hide.”

“That’s—”

I can’t finish the sentence, and Maria lets out a little sigh.

“…Come on, Kazuki. It doesn’t seem like I can beat around the bush any longer, so I’ll say it, but I don’t find this change in you to be a welcome one. I can’t read your actions anymore.”

“…And what would reading them let you do?”

“If I could guess what you’re going to do, then I could infer how you will act and whether you will survive when I die, for instance. I don’t know any of that now, though, which prevents me from doing anything.”

“…What are you saying?”

When I die, for instance— What sort of assumption is that?

But Maria ignores my reaction and presses on.

“You aren’t relying on me this time. I get it: I know I’m powerless and not much use in Kingdom Royale. I accept that. But it doesn’t matter.”

Maria manages to put on a smile as she speaks.

“In spite of all that, I’m still going to keep you safe.”

Is she saying she’s willing to use her own life to do it…?

Even though she knows full well I would never want that?

“But I still want to protect you, even if it means throwing away my life.”

She definitely said that.

During the second game, I’m certain she’d said that.

“When you don’t have your Box, it’s my job to protect you.”

That’s why—

“—I won’t let you.”

—I will never allow Maria to die trying to keep me safe.

“I told you that it’s my job to protect you! I won’t allow you to do that!”

Maria’s eyes go wide.

Oh, right. She doesn’t remember what I said during the second game. The sudden outburst is probably just confusing.

I don’t care. I just have to make sure she understands my intentions.

“You’re not the one who’s going to protect me. I’m going to—”

“Wait.”

But she cuts me off. Her wide eyes have narrowed and are now fixing me with a sharp glare.

“What exactly is going on with you?”

“…What do you mean?”

“It’s your normal life that you want to protect, right? Not me, but your normal life with Mogi and Kirino, right? That’s why you’ve held on to such firm beliefs, isn’t it? Why are you throwing a fit here now? Don’t disappoint me like this.”

I’m shocked at what she says. These are her unadorned true feelings.

“………Oh.”

Only now do I finally see it.

Maria has overestimated me.

She watched me cling to my normalcy, refusing to change my convictions for what amounted to a lifetime. Perhaps that’s why it seemed so incredible from her perspective. Even though I simply remained the same within that cycle of stagnant repetition, maybe it made me seem like some sort of superhuman.

Maria thought that since I didn’t change over such a long period of time, I would most likely never change.

But that just isn’t possible.

I’m normal. I keep saying this. Even O said I would change at some point.

There aren’t any superhumans here, either. Not Iroha Shindo, Yuri Yanagi, Daiya Oomine, nor even Koudai Kamiuchi is guaranteed to survive Kingdom Royale. There’s no way of telling who is superior to anyone else. That alone proves there is no such thing as a superhuman. It’s ironic I would awaken to this fact within a Box created to fight off boredom.

So of course I’m not superhuman.

And—neither is Maria.

But Maria has gotten this wrong.

“…Why wouldn’t you be in my normal life?”

“That should be obvious.”

That’s why she wants to be special. Why she believes she can become so.

“I’m a Box.”

Even though she’s just a normal person.

I then think something with no basis or context.

This still isn’t over.

I haven’t lost yet.

After all, Maria is still alive.