The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria

🔶 Day 10 <D> The Common Area

Still, I think.

“If it had been me, I could’ve done much better.”

Yuri’s and the others’ rations ran out, and I only had two portions left for each person. I handed them over to Maria and Daiya, so I have no more.

It’s finally time for the real Daiya to go into action.

Something occurs to me.

Daiya was able to operate behind the scenes because his turn came before mine. If I had been first, I would’ve been the one to face down Koudai Kamiuchi.

None of us would’ve had such a difficult time if I had.

If I had succeeded, we may not even have had to play Kingdom Royale.

At the very least, I’m sure Yuri and Iroha wouldn’t have suffered so much, and there would have been no need to kill Koudai Kamiuchi. I think all this as I look down at the light-blue watch I got back from Daiya.

But this awful outcome is probably what Daiya wanted. So when it comes down to it, he really is my enemy.

All the same, I’m sure even Daiya doesn’t truly hope for this. He may not be aware of it, but in his heArt_of hearts, he likely wanted us to reach an end where we can all be happy.

“That’s what comes of thinking you can find hope in a Box.”

Daiya doesn’t answer me and just plays with the piercings in his right ear.

Well, the rest is up to you, Daiya.

Then it’s farewell.

I don’t want to see you anymore.

After all, if we do meet again, you will have used your Box. You could never hope to use it properly. I’ll most likely attempt to destroy it.

This means that next time, you and I will be enemies in the truest sense of the word.

And that’s why I hope I never see you again.

Back in middle school, I dated a girl I didn’t care about.

Yeah, she was sophisticated for a middle schooler, and her slender yet voluptuous legs underneath her rolled-up skirt were attractive enough to get me going.

But her stupidity and lack of integrity were more than enough to cancel out her charm. All our conversations were just her talking trash about other people, and not even in a witty or interesting way that made it fun. She was boring. Unpleasant. And so I mastered the skill of automatically giving her a “Right, right” while I was mentally solving simultaneous equations.

I never would have approached her, so she must have been the one who asked me out. But why did I ever agree to stArt_seeing her when plenty of other girls had told me they liked me? Did she just turn me on?

Anyway, by comparison, quiet, submissive girls are more my type. Speaking of, there was one upperclassman I had my eye on who fit that image to a T. Her eyes were always downcast, like she wasn’t sure of herself; she wore her hair long, like a Japanese doll, and had thick glasses—a textbook “gloomy girl.” Her face was usually hidden behind her hair, but if you gave her a closer look, you’d find her features were lovely and well proportioned. I somehow got it into my head that I was the only one who noticed her allure and became strangely possessive of her.

…Ahhh, that’s it. I was completely astonished when I found out she had a boyfriend, and that was when I started going out with Rino, even though I couldn’t have cared less about her. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ Novᴇ(l)Fɪre .ɴᴇt

Even though she didn’t matter one whit to me, Rino was apparently pretty popular.

Not long after I started seeing her, someone called me out and said to meet him behind the school gym. It was a classmate of mine with blond hair. Our teacher had given up on him as a lost cause.

“You tryna stArt_somethin’ with me, punk?!” he said, even though we’d never had a real conversation before, so I obviously wasn’t. As we talked, I figured out his incomprehensible outrage was triggered by my relationship with that girl.

“Break up with Rino, you cocky bastard.”

He didn’t lay his cards on the table at first, perhaps out of a strange sense of pride, but eventually, my blond classmate got fed up with my confusion and grabbed me by the collar to threaten me.

I wasn’t really attached to her, so I probably should’ve just said, “Yeah, sure, no problem.” But, well, I was a bit of a troublemaker myself at the time, and his idiotic demands just pissed me off. In the end, I replied, “And why do I have to follow your orders?” I may or may not have added another extremely accurate remark to the effect of “Don’t blame girls for not liking you. You’re a jackass.”

And that’s how I started taking regular beatings.

It irritated me, so I stayed with a girl I didn’t care about just to spite that idiot for messing with me. Blondie, your plans really backfired.

Not to change topics here, but I really like my mom. She’s young, I think she’s pretty, and most importantly, she raised me all on her own. My father was apparently a despicable man who began abusing my seventeen-year-old mom in an attempt to abort me when he found out she was pregnant. Because of that, my mom was always telling me to “never turn to violence” like a broken record. “Violence never solves anything.”

It may sound hard to believe, but I still think she was right. She’s told me ever since I was small, and the mantra is still firmly rooted in my mind.

That’s why I never fought back when Blondie came after me—I just took it.

However, even though only one person was getting violent, it still left its marks. I could hardly bear my wounds, and my mom began to suspect I was fighting—turning to violence. “Why do you have these bruises? Are you going to throw away everything I’ve taught you? Are you turning into the man I hate more than anything?”

It’s ridiculous; my beloved mother lost hope in me, even though I was still respecting her teaching. I had to put an end to this.

And so I came to believe I had no choice, that violence might be okay, just this once, as a means to an end.

I told Blondie to meet me out behind the gym. I couldn’t possibly lose to an inferior blond monkey. I punched him. I kicked him. In just a few blows, he was off his feet. I could never let the news of my violence spread, so I decided to threaten him into keeping his mouth shut. The blond monkey was pretty stubborn. I beat him until he was unconscious. I tore out his hair, ripped out his nails, pissed on him, and forced him to eat centipedes until he passed out, and I finished by stripping him naked and leaving him in the gymnasium where the girls would be doing club activities. Thinking back on it now, I guess I went that far because I had built an even bigger grudge against the guy than I had imagined.

The blond monkey said something to me before he lost consciousness: “You don’t actually care about Rino at all. You’re just using her to get off, like some sex toy. That’s why I hate your guts.” I remember thinking that maybe the monkey actually did have genuine feelings for that worthless girl.

I didn’t give a rat’s ass.

Monkeys don’t have rights.

In fact, wiping the floor with that jerk just pissed me off even more. I mean, in the end, he was just a weakling. This nobody caused me so much grief? And not only that, he forced me to break my taboo against violence? This pathetic monkey who never stood a chance against me?

Fuck off. Well, thanks to him, I unfortunately learned something.

The pleasure of using violence to control.

Before then, I was powerless against dirty maggots who strutted around like the king of the hill just because they had the guts to fight, even though they were obviously inferior to me. Their internal compasses only pointed to whether a guy was good at throwing down. They competed for superiority purely on someone’s skill in a fight; they didn’t care for all those other abilities like athletics or studying. What disgraceful values. Violence can never solve anything; only trash would cling to that. They’re an inferior species. They live worthless lives, just like my father, who tried to kill me before I was even born.

But in the end, they bow down before violence.

There’s no meaning in that. Subjugating a bunch of apes on a lower rung of the genetic ladder is absolutely pointless. It’s all about the pleasure of it, really. That’s all the meaning it needs.

Violence need only be for pleasure.

That moral code is pretty on point, if I do say so myself.

I called out Blondie again. He’d been avoiding me out of fear after the last time, but then I warned him that if he didn’t show, I would pass Rino around to a bunch of other men at a hotel. He arrived meekly enough. I took him to a river canal near the school along with several of our classmates, a few of Blondie’s former buds, Rino herself, and some of her friends. The waist-deep canal was filthy, the type of place where you’d often see dead dogs floating by.

“Hey, monkey. You’re in the swimming club, right?” I said to him. “As it happens, I’m pretty bad at it.” I looked at Rino to make sure he saw that she was giggling at him. “How about you give me a few pointers here?”

I didn’t let him refuse.

“Hey, you aren’t thinking of swimming in your clothes, are you? That’s crazy,” I added, and he stripped down to his trunks without any additional prompting. I wasn’t going to let him off that easy, though, so I made him drop those, too.

Rino and her friends ewwed at each other like a bunch of brainless idiots.

Blondie began swimming with big splashes. I could tell he was trying very hard to keep his expression under control. When I ordered him to do the butterfly, he showed us a thrilling performance in that shallow canal. The sight was so funny that I kept cracking up while I was kicking him around. Half the kids there were turned off by all this, but Rino was clapping her hands loudly and laughing.

I made sure the blond monkey could hear me when I said, “Hey, Rino. Let’s go to a hotel after this.”

“What? C’mon, Kou, not in front of everyone else. It’s embarrassing.”

“Not up for it?”

“N… No, of course I am.”

“Then let’s go.”

“…Okay.”

“Let’s get really dirty, like we did last time.”

“Sure, but… C’mon, don’t talk about this in front of everybody! You dummy.”

Blondie threw up in the canal.

After that, I took Rino to a hotel, as promised. There were several men there waiting for us. I left her there, got some money from the strangers, and went home.

Naturally, I made sure Blondie heard the truth. I never saw hide nor hair of him again.

So yeah, violence truly doesn’t solve anything. It only gives rise to new hate. That’s what happens when you just throw it around unawares.

But I ended up paying a price for using it, too.

The incident at the canal blew up, and my mom ended up hearing about it. Once she knew the details, she started acting terrified of me and kept me at arm’s length. She won’t even really talk to me anymore. Even though I love her as much as always.

Still, I continued to betray her. I kept wielding violence. I had already become so addicted that I couldn’t last long without tasting its pleasures.

I do believe violence doesn’t really solve anything. But it can destroy anything and everything. No matter how much pride or fame or money someone has, it can be smashed to pieces by a single act of violence. When I abuse someone with the knowledge that it will destroy their life, a crackling white light races through my head, courses down through my entire body, and melts my heArt_in its thrill. The ecstasy is so great that I can’t stop.

I’m sure someone else will destroy me someday, too.

I imagine my insides sinking into a lake of sulfuric acid and dissolving. For some reason, the idea gives me peace. Just fantasizing about my body turning into a shapeless, runny mess fills me with amazing relief.

I don’t feel like pondering why.

But I do have one thought: Maybe once I’ve turned to liquid, that’ll be my proper form. I suffered violence before I was born; maybe it would’ve been better if had just come out as some sludge before I could take on the shape of a human.

“Do you have a wish?”

So this question poses a problem for me.

I’m going to be destroyed someday; are you suggesting I wish for something?

When it comes down to it, I—and not just me, but everyone else, too—is going to lose everything in the end. Does anything have meaning in that case? If it does, I’d love to hear what it is.

Once you learn that meaning doesn’t exist, the world turns to sheer tedium. And like Daiya Oomine said, tedium truly is a monster, one that threatens to consume me.

That’s why the ability to escape it is enough.

And thus, I created the Game of Indolence and started Kingdom Royale.