Chapter 3: I’m Just a Human. Can I Stop an Interstellar War?

When the light disappeared, Iris’s face was right in front of me.

“Mmm... UWAHH!”

“Eeyah!”

Our faces were so close to each other that we both screamed and jumped back at the same time.

Wh-Whew... Just a little more and our faces would’ve touched. I won’t say where.

Either way, if Iris was here, that meant I was back to my own world. I took a moment to sigh in relief, and then in the next instant Iris jumped on me and pushed me down. I moaned in pain.

“Rekka, where have you been? I was really worried!” If I told her I went to another world, she probably wouldn’t believe me.

“Sorry, some stuff was going on.”

“What do you mean, ‘some stuff was going on’?! I just cleaned your clothes, and now you’re all messy again! The warp’s almost over, so we need to get ready to meet my dad!”

“The warp’s almost over?” I checked my wristwatch. It was a little before 4:00 PM. I’d been away from Earth for almost three hours.

“Looks like you made it back by the time you wanted,” R said, as she adjusted her military cap.

She was as expressionless as ever, but I could tell she was a little ticked off. It felt like she’d been that way since a little before I came back to this world?

Anyway, just like she said, I’d made it back at the perfect time. I needed to persuade Iris to send me back to Earth as soon as the warp was finished.

But Iris grabbed my hand before I could bring it up. “Come on, quick. Let’s get changed in my room.”

“No, wait!”

Her arms were far stronger than you’d think from their tiny size, and I was dragged helplessly throughout the ship.

“The first thing you need is a bath. Come on, get in.”

“No, listen to me. I need to tell you something important first—”

I wanted to tell her about Satsuki as soon as possible, but before I could, she locked me inside the bathroom. It was a weird-looking bathroom, too. There was no tub and no shower.

“Okay, I’m going to wash you.”

“Huh? But I’m still dressed...”

I could hear her fiddling with some controls outside the bathroom. Then the ceiling opened up a little and a flood of white gas came pouring out.

“Hey, wait— NYGAAH!”

Suddenly, a strong centrifugal force spun me around in the center of the room and covered me with the gas. I spun for a few dozen seconds, until I wasn’t sure which way was up or down anymore, and then finally released.

“Okay, we’re done. You’re all clean now,” Iris said, as she came inside.

I felt like I was about to throw up. “Now I know what it feels like to be a shirt in a washing machine.”

The white gas must’ve been some kind of cleaning agent, because all the dirt and grime that had accumulated on me and my clothes in the other world was gone now. That shower had worked, even if it wasn’t very pleasant.

“Next, we need to choose your clothes. I’ll get you a nice outfit that really tells everyone you’re my lover.”

“No, wait!” I was dragged down another hallway. This time she took me to her room.

There was a round bed with pink sheets, a big chest of drawers, and a makeup stand. One wall was piled high with stuffed animals that didn’t look like they were from Earth. Where in the universe could you find a creature that looked like a cross between an octopus and a giraffe? Wherever it was, I hoped I never ran into it. There were a lot of other things, too, but there was room for all of it. The place might have been bigger than my living room.

“Now, then, what would be a good outfit for you?” Iris started to hum as she grabbed clothing out of her dresser.

A dress, a dress, and then another dress. What was she planning on having me wear? “I-Iris... Listen to me.”

“Hmm? What is it?” Iris stopped going through her clothes and looked at me.

Ugh... it was hard to talk about it when she was staring at me that way, but I didn’t have a choice. Satsuki was in danger right now, and Iris’s problems could wait a little. Dealing with Satsuki was more urgent.

I steeled myself and began to speak. “Once this warp is over... I’m sorry, but can you turn us around and go straight back to Earth?”

“What?! Why?” Iris was angry, just like I thought she’d be.

“You see...” I told her that my childhood friend, Satsuki, was being chased by a wizard named Messiah back on Earth. I figured that telling her about the Namidare bloodline, or the mix-up at the abandoned factory, would just make things complicated, so I didn’t mention any of that.

I explained things as carefully as I could, and I think I got across the point that Satsuki was in more immediate danger than she was. I thought that Iris would agree and send me back to Earth, but...

“No,” she refused.

“Wh-Why?!” I asked.

But the space princess just turned away from me in a huff. “Because you’re choosing this Satsuki girl over me, right? So no.”

“No, I’m not choosing anyone. I just have to save her.”

“I want you to save me, too. Why won’t you meet my dad?!”

Um... so what was going on here? Did Iris think I was just going to save Satsuki, and not save her?

“I’ll pretend to be your lover, too. But Satsuki’s in more danger right now, so I want to save her first.”

“That means you care more about your Earth girl than about me!”

No, it doesn’t!

Iris shook off my hand and jumped onto the bed, then hid herself beneath the covers.

“I hate you, Rekka!” She screamed from under the sheets. I started pacing. I had no idea what to do.

Why was this happening? I told her that Messiah was after Satsuki, right? I could pretend to be her lover anytime, so obviously Satsuki needed saving first!

As I tried to figure out what I did wrong, R swam by in mid-air, staring at me with cold eyes. “You really don’t understand how women think, do you, Rekka?”

There was nothing I could say.

Iris seemed to be seriously pissed off. She was buried under the sheets and refusing to come out.

“The ship will now exit warp. There will be slight turbulence. Please be careful,” said an electronic voice from the ceiling.

This was bad. I wanted to head right back after the warp, but I couldn’t imagine Iris helping me like this. I needed to get her back in a good mood somehow.

“Um... I’m sorry. Don’t get mad. Come out.”

SMACK! Her tail, the one part of her that was sticking out of the sheets, slammed into the bed.

Dang. Maybe that was a bad way to put it.

“Exiting warp.” The electronic voice informed us that our time in warp was about to come to an end.

There were no windows in Iris’s private room, so I didn’t get to see what it looked like when we exited warp. Instead, I felt a heavy impact in my stomach.

“C-Come on. Help me out here. I want to get back to Earth as soon as I can.” I pulled on the sheet that Iris was covering herself with.

“No! NO!” She grabbed onto the sheet and wouldn’t let go. For a moment, I felt like a mother trying to get a kid out of bed in the morning. Since she was stronger than I was, I collapsed first, though.

I didn’t have time to screw around anymore. I needed to get back and save Satsuki as soon as I could.

I stood up off the ground again and started to shake her. “Come on! Seriously! Please! I’ll get down on my knees and dogeza if I have to!”

“What’s a dogeza?”

“It’s a man’s ultimate weapon!” At least, that’s what my mom had told me. Come to think of it, why was she the one who’d taught me that, instead of my dad?

Iris poked her head out of the sheets a little and looked at me cautiously. From the look on her face, there still wasn’t much room for negotiating.

“I promise!” There was no time to worry about appearances now. I activated my ultimate weapon. I dropped down to my knees in a sudden, exaggerated movement, and smacked my head against the floor.

Iris must have found this bizarre, because her body twitched in shock.

“I promise I’ll save you after I save Satsuki! So please, just let me save her first! Messiah might be doing something terrible to her right now! So please! I’m begging you!” And then I stopped. Now it was just a question of whether my feelings would reach Iris.

She was silent for a while. I could feel her looking down on me from the bed. I remained stock-still.

And in the end... she gave in first. Iris sat up, the sheets still over her head, and stared right at me. “Are you in love with this Satsuki girl?”

“Huh? No, she’s just my childhood friend. It’s nothing like that.” I wasn’t expecting that question, so it took me a second, but I answered honestly.

“Hahh...” For some reason, R sighed above my head.

And then...

“Fine. You can go back to Earth.”

“Really?!” I leaped off the ground and looked at her face.

She was still a little angry, but her expression was much softer than it had been a moment ago.

“Really. But!” Iris leaned off the bed, and moved her face close enough to touch my nose. “This Satsuki girl is really just your childhood friend, right? You’re telling the truth, right?”

“Y-Yeah!” I didn’t know why that was so important to her, but since it was true, I nodded.

Either way, while Iris didn’t seem happy about it, she agreed to return us to Earth. Suddenly, however, an unexpected shockwave struck the ship, and the floor began to shake.

“Eeyah!”

“Uwah!”

There was no warning at all, so Iris lost her balance and fell on top of me.

“Ow...” I managed to grab her and keep her from hitting the ground, but I hit the back of my head on the floor, and my vision wavered a little. “Wait, why would a ship shake in space?”

There weren’t waves like there would be in an ocean, right? I grabbed Iris to try and help her up... and felt something very soft in the palm of my hand.

Um... I’ve got a really bad feeling about this. Iris was on top of me, looking shocked. To be honest, I didn’t want to look away from her eyes. More specifically, I didn’t want to look down.

But Iris was slowly, fearfully looking down at her chest, and slowly, fearfully, I had no choice but to follow her eyes. God, please let this wonderful feeling in my palm just be an illusion.

“Eeyah! Rekka touched my boobs!”

My hopes, however, were quickly dashed. “W-W-Wait! It was an accident! This was an accident!”

Iris jumped off of me and wrapped the sheets around her body, as if trying to protect herself. Her face was beet red.

Wait, she’s allowed to grab me, but I’m not allowed to touch her? Talk about selfish. Wait, now’s not the time for that! First, I need to tell her I’m not a pervert... wait, now’s not the time for that, either! First, I need to find out why the ship shook.

“Iri— bwah!” Just as I opened my mouth, a stuffed animal that looked like a cross between a rabbit and a penguin smacked me on the jaw.

“No! Stay away!”

“Okay! Okay, just stop throwing things at me!” Even if they were made of cloth, they still hurt when a super-strong alien threw them!

I managed to finally calm Iris down. After that, we headed for the ship’s control room. And there we saw...

“A... A whole space fleet?!”

I looked out the window and saw dozens of what appeared to be spaceships. Several of them were clinging to Iris’s ship, trapping us.

“Iris. Are these the Satamonian guys you were talking about?”

“No. These belong to the Fineritan Self-Defense Fleet.”

“Huh?” Finerita was Iris’s home planet, right? Why would they be trying to capture her?

“We finally caught you, Iris.” I heard a low, male voice emit from the speaker on the control deck.

Iris’s eyes went wide. “Daddy!”

“Daddy?!” Wait, all these ships were out here to catch a runaway daughter?

“Daddy, why are you doing this? Why are you arresting me like a criminal?”

“You don’t understand anything, do you? Perhaps I sheltered you too much.”

There was a note of disgust in his voice that confused me. Was this how a dad usually acted toward his daughter? “Hey, you.”

“Hmm? It seems there’s someone else aboard... Well, that’s fine. You can ask your questions later. For now, I’m having the Self-Defense Fleet take you back to Finerita. And then, you’re coming before the Owaria.” That was all he said before he hung up.

I was even more confused now, but with all these spaceships surrounding us, there was nowhere to run. We had no choice but to obey.

▽

Seen from space, Finerita was a green planet. When we landed on the surface, I could see grassy plains stretching out all the way to the horizon. If Earth was a planet of water, this was a planet of fields, maybe.

Iris’s spaceship was locked in place by the Self-Defense Fleet’s anchors and brought here. We were taken to the center of a huge tower that stretched all the way up to the clouds. In the middle of the tower was an open “mouth.” The fleet’s ships formed a line and went inside. This was probably the headquarters of the Owaria, the committee that ruled planet Finerita.

The first thing they did when we landed was take away my warp watch and laser gun. I tried using the warp watch to escape before they grabbed us, but it seemed like there was some kind of warp-blocking technology at work in the tower. I guess without some kind of blocker, the warp technology would be too dangerous to just let anyone have.

We were brought to some kind of elevator that looked like a dais. I was scared that I might fall off the edge as the dais rose up, but Iris explained that there was an invisible force field surrounding it.

Iris didn’t say much while the self-defense force people were surrounding us. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, and she looked down.

Well, I guess that’s what you’d expect after the way her dad treated her. What was her dad, who was supposedly the head of the Owaria, thinking?

We were taken like prisoners to a room with a round table at the top of the tower, where the Owaria met. The room was brightly-lit, with lights embedded into the ceiling. Part of the wall was glass, so you could look out and see the clouds.

Sitting at the round table were old men wearing clothes with upturned collars. They were probably the members of Owaria, and they all looked very strict. Talk about a bad welcome.

Sitting right across from us on the other side of the round table was a grim-looking, middle-aged man with short-cropped, silver hair and a wrinkled brow. His jaw rested on his folded hands, and he was glaring at Iris with a sharp gaze. I whispered a question into Iris’s ear, asking who he was.

“That’s... my dad. He’s the head of the Owaria.”

“Why’s he so mad?”

“I don’t... know. It’s probably because I ran away from home... but I’ve never seen him so upset before.”

Hmph.

I glanced over at R. This time, however, she only shrugged. “Even I can’t make any guesses without more information.”

That’s true. For now, I needed information. Otherwise, there was no way they’d let me go, and no way I could get back to Earth.

“U-Um...”

“I don’t know who you are, but please remain silent.”

I hadn’t even said anything yet! But I was an outsider here. I’d just have to let Iris talk to her dad instead.

“Iris.” I motioned for her to ask her father what was going on.

“Oh, yeah...” Iris was probably having trouble watching her dad stare at her silently like that, too. She was fidgeting like she didn’t want to talk, but she finally looked up.

“Um... Dad?”

“What?” Even talking to his daughter, his voice was still firm.

“Hwahh! Um...” Iris’s lips trembled when she heard his voice, and she looked back down at the ground.

“D-Did I do something bad?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but the whole round table froze when they heard her.

Come on! That’s not a good question! I almost yelled at her, but managed to stop myself.

It was clear from the atmosphere of the room that they were all mad. Asking if she’d done something wrong, as if she had no clue, was just pouring oil on a fire. Just like I expected, some of the men were smashing their fists into the table.

“‘Did I do something bad,’ you ask?”

“You don’t even know what you’ve done?!”

“Chairman, even if she is your daughter, don’t you think you’ve spoiled her a little too much?”

There was a storm of curses and harsh words that made me want to cover my ears. The other Owaria members, in particular, seemed to be the ones who were getting the most excited. Iris’s father was just pressing his lips together and waiting for everyone to calm down.

“What’s going on here?” Iris sobbed, already in tears.

I tried to figure out what was going on, but half of what I heard was just filthy curses, and I couldn’t get anywhere.

“I see. So that’s it.” R, however, seemed to have figured something out.

Before I could ask her what it was, Iris’s father rang a silver bell that was placed on the table. A high-pitched sound that threatened to pierce my eardrums and stab right into my brain stem rang through the room, and instantly there was silence. It must have been some kind of tool to calm down debates when they got too heated.

“Our planet is now faced with greater danger than any other since we first attained spaceflight.” His voice was low and clear as he began to speak to us. No, he was talking to Iris. “Planet Finerita has already mined all its natural resources. We survive by importing resources from other planets, processing them, and then exporting them. You know that much at least, right?”

Iris nodded a little, silently.

“This means, however, that we have little ability to survive on our own. If some form of pressure were to cut off all our imports, we would have no choice but to starve.” His words stopped.

Everyone in the room was looking at Iris.

At this point, even I knew what was going on. Planet Finerita was about to meet the fate that the chairman had just described. And the reason was...

“Iris, this is because you refused to marry King Satamonia.”

Yeah, that was about what I thought.

Iris shook her head, as if she really didn’t know what was going on. “But... but...” She didn’t say anything else. She just kept shaking her head.

“W-Wait a second!” I moved between the men and Iris. Everyone started looking at me.

“Who are you?”

I gulped in fear before I answered his question. “My name’s Rekka Namidare. Why I’m here is a long story, but there’s something wrong with you people.”

“This is none of your concern, child!” One of the Owaria members yelled at me, but the chairman raised his hand to stop them.

“Rekka Namidare, I brought you here to find out what, exactly, my daughter has been doing, but that can wait for a moment. I’ll ask you to remain silent until it is time for you to speak.”

Iris’s dad was talking like one of the teachers at school. I wasn’t good at dealing with that sort of person. But, well... I couldn’t just stand here silently.

“You guys keep talking like this is all Iris’s fault. It was King Satamonia who asked her to marry him when she didn’t want to, right? So she should have the right to refuse, shouldn’t she?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Why?”

“Because Iris is my daughter.” There was no emotion at all in his voice. “I am, for better or for worse, planet Finerita’s representative to the galaxy. Thus, I must always consider this planet’s interests, and its peace, my highest priority. That goes for my daughter as well.”

“That’s your problem, not hers.”

“So you’re willing to let an entire planet starve, just to help her?”

“Uh! N-No, that’s not what I said...”

“King Satamonia is a persistent and forceful man. If the marriage is delayed any further, he may invade our planet this time. There’re plenty of ways to fabricate a cause for war, if he wants one.”

Would anyone normally go that far, just for one girl? No, the problem was that King Satamonia wasn’t normal. He might start an interstellar war if he had to. That’s why everyone looked so grim.

The chairman glanced back at Iris. “Iris. You’ve lived a very easy life. And not only that, I’ve let you get away with most every selfish thing you wanted to do. All of that was because you’re the daughter of the chairman. Don’t you think that it’s time to repay the planet for all the benefits it’s given you?”

Iris was looking down at the floor the whole time as she listened. Her face was pale. She must have had no idea that her actions had brought all this on.

Mmm... What should I do? I couldn’t think of any counter-arguments, either. I was starting to think that they were right.

The whole room fell silent. Iris and I stood there helplessly. And then suddenly, all the lights in the room went out.

“What happened?!” One of the Owaria members screamed.

It was too dark to see anything. I could hear a confused babble surrounding me. The one thing I could make out was the sharp, low voice of the chairman, telling one of the guards to find out what had happened.

I had no idea what was going on, and there was nothing I could do. All I could do was just stand there... but then, I suddenly felt a tug at the hem of my shirt.

“Iris?” From the direction it was pulling me, I could tell that it was her. I could sense from her hand that she was shaking. Just before I spoke, the room lit back up.

But this time, it wasn’t the lights from the ceiling. The glass window had turned into something like a computer monitor, and the light was pouring out from it.

“Gwah fwah fwah fwah! My beloved Iris! You’re as cute as ever!” There was a nasty, nasty laugh. On the screen I saw a man that looked like a combination of a human, a pug, and a toad, with a bald head and antennae. His obese body was purple, and each time he laughed, his belly fat shook. Standing next to him was a thin man who was also purple.

“So who’s that?” R asked. Her voice was as disinterested as ever.

The chairman couldn’t have heard her, but he spoke to the man on the monitor with a bitter look on his face. “King Satamonia. I don’t remember opening a communications channel.”

So this fatass was King Satamonia, huh? The king laughed again when he heard the chairman’s words.

“Gwah fwah! Don’t be such a stuffed shirt. I was just so happy to hear my beloved Iris was back that I couldn’t help myself. Just ask my chief of staff here.” The thin man must have been his chief of staff. The slimy grin on his face was pissing me off.

“Indeed. When you heard the report, you hurried straight to your communications staff, sire. You were in such a hurry that you stepped on one of your pets and crushed them.”

“Hmm? Did I? I don’t remember.”

“I’ll buy another of the same type for you later.”

“Hmm... No, next time I want a Dumbrage gorilla from planet Janbarila.”

Were they getting off-topic? The king and his chief of staff started talking about the next pet they were going to buy, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they’d interrupted our conversation. Of course, no one on the planet Finerita side was participating.

“Your Highness, what can I do for you?”

“What else? I’m here to talk about my marriage to little Iris.” Iris’s face tensed up when she heard that.

King Satamonia was oblivious to her change of expression. If he’d been looking closer, he could’ve seen how much she hated the idea of marrying him. But if she refused, something terrible would happen to this planet.

Everyone in the room was looking at Iris. They were all silently telling her to say yes.

I was starting to panic, but in the end, I couldn’t say anything. I just stared at Iris’s face. If she refused the marriage, there’d be an interstellar war.

A war... What was I supposed to do about that? All I had to do with the Demon Overlord was, well, kill the Demon Overlord. But a war was different. It wasn’t a problem I could solve on my own. One wrong move and millions would die. That was how war worked.

It wasn’t something I could handle by myself. I couldn’t think of any way to resolve this. Should she do her duty, like the chairman said? Maybe she doesn’t have a choice, I thought to myself.

I could tell Iris was about to give up and nod. She was biting her lip and still looking down. She was going to give up on her own wants, smother her own feelings, and do what everyone wanted to her to do.

There was a single tear running down her cheek that she couldn’t quite hide—

“Hold it right there!” I screamed.

Everyone turned to look at me.

“Rekka?” Iris looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

“Hmm? Who the hell are you?”

“Shut up, pig-frog!”

“GWAP?!”

I told the guy on the monitor to shut up, then took a breath to calm down. I’d been so overwhelmed by what was going on that I’d forgotten what was important. Even now, Iris’s “story” was heading straight for a bad end.

And all I’d been doing was watching her cry, and telling myself that there was nothing I could do, or that I couldn’t think of anything. What an idiot. If everything was going to work out without me doing anything, I wouldn’t have had all this trouble today. The only way these stories were going to have happy endings was if I did something. I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was right, but I’d try my best anyway. I had to stop this tragedy from happening!

“Are you guys all really okay with this?”

Everyone looked at me as if they didn’t understand what I meant. Nobody answered me.

The chairman’s eyes, especially, were sharp and narrow. I asked him again. “What about you, chairman? Are you really okay with Iris marrying this guy?”

“Young man, please, be silent. This is our planet’s problem to solve. Not yours.”

“I’m asking you if you’re okay with it.”

“My personal feelings aren’t important. Protecting this planet and its people is my duty.”

“Shut up and answer the question! I’m asking you, her dad, if you’re okay with marrying her off to someone she doesn’t want to marry! If you really think that’s going to make everyone happy!”

Iris’s father’s expression twisted. He glared at me and bit his lip, showing anger for the first time. The stream of blood running down his lip told me exactly what he really thought. “Then what do you want me to do?”

“All you had to do was look that way from the start. Right, Iris?”

“Daddy...” Iris’s eyes were still red and puffy, but the tension was gone from her face.

There was nothing harder, or more painful, than making an enemy out of your own father. She must’ve felt a lot better knowing her dad didn’t really want her to marry King Satamonia. The two of them would probably be fine now. All that was left was...

“What are you people talking about? Are you trying to interfere with my marriage to Iris?” He finished with a furious belch. King Satamonia was spitting with rage at being ignored.

R, who’d been watching the whole thing, sighed. “So now what will you do, Rekka? If you’re not careful, you might start an interstellar war.”

She was right. That would ruin everything. Which meant... I didn’t have a choice.

I glared back at King Satamonia. “Of course I am. Because... I’m the one who’s going to marry Iris!”

“Wh-What?! What are you talking about?”

“Shut up! I fell in love with her, damn it! I forced her to bring me here all the way from Earth, just so I could marry her!” That wasn’t exactly true, but it was close enough.

“I can make Iris happier than you can! There’s no way I’m giving her over to a pig-frog like you!”

“Wh-Who are you calling a pig-frog?!”

“Did that make you mad? Then—” I raised my fist towards his face and shouted as loud as I could. “—fight me for Iris!”

“W-Whaaawhuwhat?! I’ve never even heard of your little ‘Earth’ planet! Don’t you dare tell me what to do!”

“If you’re a man, then fight with your fists! Or are you happy to invade a planet with your armies, but too much of a pussy to fight an Earthling one-on-one? Hah! What a wimp!”

“Gebubububu!” His face had turned to a reddish purple, and his anger had reached its peak.

“So what’ll it be, pig-froggy?” I shouted every provocation I could think of, and clenched my shaking, sweaty hands into fists.

All my bloodline gave me was a final chance to save a story. And if there was a chance I could succeed, there was also a chance I could fail. But the only thing I could think of doing was challenging the king to a one-on-one fight.

Just looking at that Satamonian laser gun told me that his military must be every bit as strong as everyone said. In a one-on-one fight, there was a good chance he’d just turn me to ashes... but at least this way there wouldn’t be a war. In the worst case, no one would suffer but me. I could come up with a way to win later. For now, my job was to get him to agree to the fight.

“Sire, may I have a word?” His thin chief of staff, who had been silent this whole time, suddenly stepped forward.

“WHAT?!” The raging king spit saliva everywhere as he turned around, but the thin man smiled without even raising an eyebrow.

“I have an idea. Let me whisper it to you.” As the thin man began to whisper, the king’s face turned from an angry reddish purple to a normal purple, and at last, he started to smile and chuckle.

“Very well, boy. I accept your request.”

“O-Okay...” My plan had worked, so why did I feel so nervous?

“But you were the one who interfered with my marriage to Iris. So I’ll be the one to decide the nature of the duel.”

“Fine...” Why did he look so confident? This was a longshot plan to begin with, but after the skinny guy spoke up, I was starting to feel even more worried.

And then King Satamonia opened his big mouth wide— “Tonight, at midnight, I will drop a meteor on Earth.”

—and told me what the duel would be.

“Huh?” For a moment, I seriously didn’t understand what he was saying. But it was less that I didn’t understand, and more that I didn’t want to accept what I’d just heard. I mean... a meteor?

“If you can stop the meteor, you win. If you can’t, I win.”

“W-W-Wait! Then if I fail, that meteor’s going to hit Earth!”

“Bwahaha. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure it’s just the right size to destroy the planet.”

“That’s even more of a worry, damn it!” I yelled back, but that only made him happier.

He rocked back in his chair and cackled. “Bwahahaha! Do whatever you want to try and stop it. Otherwise, it’ll blow up your planet! That’s what you get for making me mad!”

“W-Wait!” The screen went black and the transmission ended.

Midnight tonight? A meteor? If I failed, Earth was doomed? Did I do something really bad?

▽

The meeting with the Owaria ended after that, and I was handed over to the chairman. But instead of questioning me, he just left me with Iris and headed back to his office. He was probably trying to do her a favor. I was grateful for that.

Iris had taken me to her room, where I sat down on a plush sofa. She’d left the room to get some drinks and something light to eat, and wasn’t here right now. My watch told me that it was 5:00 PM. The meteor would be hitting Earth in seven hours.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” Somebody tell me how one guy is supposed to stop a meteor, if there even is a way. “Can you think of any way to stop it, R?”

“Couldn’t you strap some dynamite to yourself and slam into it?”

“I guess not.” If that would work, I actually would’ve been willing to do it. Well, R wasn’t allowed to help resolve the stories, so I hadn’t expected much to begin with... but I still was desperate for any help I could get.

As I leaned back into the sofa and stared up at the ceiling, Iris came back into the room, accompanied by a floating robot carrying plates. “Rekka, are you okay?”

“Yeah...” I didn’t want to worry her too much, but I didn’t have enough strength left to pretend I was all right.

Iris put something that looked like drinks and cake on the table and had the robot leave the room. A few moments after we were alone, she spoke, hesitantly. “You’re not going to eat?”

“Sorry. I’ll just have my drink.” I didn’t have any appetite right now. I’d settle for wetting my parched throat.

Iris sat down next to me, touching neither the food nor the drinks. She didn’t look like she was doing well, either.

“What’s wrong?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not looking so good.”

“Not as bad as you.”

“Ack! You might be right...” I scratched my head and took a glance at her.

“Does your spaceship have anything on it that can shoot down a meteor?”

“It’s capable of getting rid of space debris, but... sorry. I can’t handle a meteor.”

“I see... man, I’ve gotta do something!”

Iris seemed sad. “I’m sorry. This is my fault.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m the one to blame.”

“No... it’s my fault.”

“Huh?”

She’d gotten a lot meeker over the last few minutes. I finally looked down from the ceiling and at Iris’s face.

She was staring right back into my eyes. “Why did you save me back there? You had nothing to do with this.”

“Come on, isn’t it a little late to be asking this?”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m not blaming you.” Iris seemed to be feeling guilty. Well, I could understand that, but that wasn’t how I wanted her to feel. “It’s normal to want to help a girl when she’s crying, right? Don’t worry about it.” It felt like I could’ve phrased that better, but that’s what I said.

But Iris must have been surprised by my answer, because her eyes went wide for a moment. Then, she laughed a little. “You’re pretty dumb, aren’t you, Rekka?”

“I get that a lot. I don’t agree, though.” Well, if she was smiling again, that was all that mattered. But...

“I’ve made my decision. I’m going to marry King Satamonia.”

“Huh?! What are you talking about? You hated the guy!” I wasn’t sure how to handle Iris’s sudden change of heart.

But there was a resolve hidden in her smile. “I still hate him... but at this rate, your planet’s in danger, right? If I give myself to him, he’ll be satisfied and end this stupid game.”

“Listen...” I tried to get her to give up, but Iris was unshakable.

“But you know, I don’t want him to be my first kiss. So please, Rekka... Take my first kiss, okay?”

And now she was blushing red and telling me to kiss her. “K-K-Kiss?! No, wait! Calm down!”

“I’m serious!” Her serious expression was very pretty. Any man would be happy to kiss a girl like this.

But I summoned all my self-control to knock that desire away. If I kissed her here, she’d be satisfied and go off to marry King Satamonia. If that happened, her story would head straight for a bad ending.

The one way I could stop her was to convince her I knew how to stop the meteor. But I couldn’t come up with anything. What should I do? As I frantically worked what little brains I had to come up with an answer, something in my pocket began to vibrate.

“What?” It was the phone that Satsuki had given to me in the abandoned factory.