I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 15 Page 9

  “...B-But why not?!”

  “After mobilizing a fleet of this size, I can’t simply call off the operation and say it was just a misunderstanding,” Iris responded sulkily.

  Dang it... I should be the one who’s pouting!

  “But it is just a misunderstanding! Why won’t you stop your fleet?!”

  “The simple answer is politics. With a group as large as the Greater Galactic Federation, there’s... a lot going on that a high school boy wouldn’t understand.”

  “Erk...”

  Those words stabbed at me like a knife, leaving me at an absolute loss for how to respond. Ugh... But I couldn’t just back down here. At this rate, the fleet was really going to attack the agency’s headquarters. I had to stop that no matter what!

  “Yeah, sure, maybe I don’t get politics! But what’s more important than people’s lives?! That’s what’s at stake here, so please...! Please just stop!”

  “If people’s lives are what’s important, then I can’t show any weakness to the people trying to drag me down either.”

  “What...?”

  “Satsuki and the doctor know what I’m talking about... Don’t you?”

  Iris suddenly turned to the two of them, and I instinctively followed suit. When my gaze fell on the doctor, she was nodding with a rather bitter expression.

  “I suppose... Retreating now would be seen as a failure, which would affect Iris’s position with the Greater Galactic Federation. That would indeed be troubling.”

  “Why?”

  “Let me explain it as simply as I can...”

  According to the doctor, the Galactic Federation was part of the militant hawk faction. But when you broke it down, there were two camps inside the federation. The first was Iris’s, which was intent on seeing the war through to victory—in other words, taking back Rekka Namidare. But there was another camp with a much more troubling goal.

  “They’re intent on seeing the war through to make a profit.”

  “What? But that has nothing to do with the War of All...”

  The War of All was an out-of-control fight between the heroines over me. I’d already heard about the various factions involved, but trying to make a quick buck off of people’s suffering? This was new.

  “We fought for too long, you know...”

  When Iris said that, I turned back to her.

  “When the scale of the war grew, so too did the scale of people involved. Several third parties were brought on board, and somewhere along the line the goals changed.”

  “But...”

  Come to think of it, during the first explanation I got about the War of All, there was talk of how some people with no knowledge of the origins of the war had gotten involved. I had assumed we were just talking about soldiers fighting for a cause they didn’t understand and other people who’d been dragged into things, but apparently it wasn’t limited to that.

  “If you saved me in your world too, then maybe you know him. The head of the guys who want to make a business out of the war is called King Satamonia. He’s a real nasty piece of work.”

  “Old toadface, huh?”

  She meant the king of planet Satamonia, who she’d once been engaged to before I put a stop to it. Apparently he was causing even more trouble here in the future.

  “But what about the blackmail material you had on him? Something about how he had been committing evil all throughout outer space... Can’t you use that to put him in his place?”

  “Ah, that?” Iris sighed, pointing at herself. “You’re talking to the woman who’s technically the cause of the War of the All, you know? What leg do I have left to stand on in terms of accusing others of atrocity?”

  “...!”

  Seeing Iris’s expression made a chill run down my spine. I’d heard how she was deeply involved in the series of events that triggered the War of All, but I didn’t believe any of the responsibility should fall on her. I didn’t believe it... I didn’t believe it, but what did that matter? Iris had such a cold, tortured look on her face right now. It was a symbol of all the anguish she’d been through for this. What comfort would the opinion of a stranger like me even be to her?

  “...”

  Unable to say anything, I chewed on my lip.

  “Well, that’s how it is,” Iris eventually said with a wave of her hand. “With me out of the picture, there would be no one left to oppose King Satamonia. The federation would then start selling weapons and soldiers all over the universe at cutthroat prices. And once that arms racing starts, we’ll have a whole new war on our hands.”

  “...Then how can we stop the attack on the agency?”

  “Well,” Iris said, stopping to think for a moment. “The main condition would be the complete and total surrender of the agency. Failing that, there are two options. The first is to bring you back to the Greater Galactic Federation as Rekka Namidare.”

  The doctor and I had already agreed that would be our last resort. By giving the federation what they wanted—me—we could at least avoid a fight.

  “But to be honest, that would require a lot of acting to make it work after the fact. I’m not really interested in all that. And besides, even if things go well, it would only be a matter of time before word got out that we had you, which would inevitably mean other nations and powers would try and come for you.”

  “Yeah, the doctor warned me of that...”

  In the end, just me being here was a problem. Even if we got through today... The instant my presence became public, there was going to be a fight.

  “That leaves us with the second option, which is essentially the agency handing over all its proprietary technological assets... In other words, the doctor would have to be taken into custody.”

  “So it’s come to that, has it?” the doctor asked, an eyebrow raised in disgust.

  “Well, yeah. With your brains, you’re a weapon in and of yourself. I suspect the only reason King Satamonia and his goons agreed to this mission was because of you. Otherwise we would’ve spent longer debating it and ultimately ended up sending a smaller fleet.”

  “But you know I only make defensive tools, don’t you?”

  “I do, but even those can be used as weapons.”

  “...”

  The doctor fell silent. If she were taken in by the Galactic Federation, she would most likely be forced to use her exceptional intelligence to develop weapons for them. That wasn’t easy to swallow... But what were we supposed to do?

  “In short, after engaging an operation of this size, you need to return home with something to offset the cost, right?” I asked.

  “Essentially, yes,” Iris replied.

  The two acceptable payments Iris had suggested were me and the doctor. But if we couldn’t hand over either one of us, then...

  “Does the agency have anything else of high value?” I asked the doctor.

  “Well...” she replied, glancing over at Satsuki.

  “No, other than that.”

  I stopped her in her tracks. There was no way I was going to hand over Satsuki either.

  “I know, I know. But in all seriousness, I don’t think we have anything worth as much as the three of us. All of our funds have been put into research, so we’re poor to boot.” The doctor briefly looked up and sighed before looking at Iris again. “But it’s not like you’re seeking out war for no reason, right?”

  “Of course not. I just want to find the real Rekka... Though I admit I was fooled this time.”

  “Let’s leave that in the past. There’s no point in stewing about it forever,” the doctor said, forcefully advancing the conversation. “So, how much do you think we can get away with?”

  “Get away with...?”

  “Let’s start with the battle against the agency. Assuming we have to fight at least once as you said, what happens if it comes to a draw? Would your fleet then retreat?”

  “Like I said, King Satamonia and his ilk agreed to this, so my fleet is a rather large one. No matte
r how well defended the agency may be, I can’t simply return and say, ‘We just couldn’t beat them.’ They’d never accept it.”

  I see...

  As I listened to the conversation between Iris and the doctor, something finally clicked. My approach to this was all wrong. I’d been assuming this entire time that the results of the war were more or less preset. But I was now realizing that even if one side won, there wasn’t necessarily anything to be gained from it. So as Iris and the others were discussing ways for this to go down without us having to hand over anyone, my thoughts took a similar turn. What kind of story could we fabricate where a fleet of this size could fail to obtain their objective and no one would question it?

  I at last had something specific to put my mind to now, but this was no easy problem to hash out. There were very few plausible reasons a federation fleet of this size would lose to anything. Especially the agency, as small as it was. It also wouldn’t make any sense if Iris tried to claim the fleet won against the agency but didn’t get anything about it. She’d have to bring back some kind of spoils for King Satamonia and the other warmongers to be happy.

  Something... There had to be something. But what? What would allow Iris to return home empty-handed without anyone questioning it? What story would I have to tell?

  Tokiwa...

  The face of the light literature club president suddenly popped into my mind. She was always holed up her room writing, dreaming of becoming an author. Out of all the heroines I knew, she was the best storyteller. So if I told her I was stuck here, what would she say? Yeah, that’s right... She gave me advice about writer’s block once.

  “When you get stuck... Sometimes you just have to switch things up a bit.”

  I just had to switch things up... But how? What was I supposed to change? There were certain elements in this story that I couldn’t do anything about, like the cast. I couldn’t change the fact that I was here, and I couldn’t change the fact that Iris and her fleet were here. There was also no changing the premise to the story at this point: if the federation fleet attacked the agency, there was no way they wouldn’t win unless there was some major upheaval. It would have to be something like a secret superweapon hiding at agency HQ capable of wiping out an entire fleet... But we couldn’t play that out without causing serious losses to Iris’s fleet, which would put her in just as terrible a position upon returning home. We were right back to square one.

  “Let’s say the agency surrenders before the fight. Then you can come in to inspect and realize for yourself that the tip you guys got was bad. If there’s no Rekka, there’s no problem, right?”

  “In that case, Doctor, we’d demand you come with us instead.”

  “Crap...”

  The doctor and Iris continued their discussion, but they weren’t making much progress.

  I have to switch up something... But what? How?

  There had to be a way for the federation to “win” without us having to hand over either me or the doctor. What could make a plotline like that reasonable? No, if reasonable was all we were going for, then we could just say the doctor and I ran away and leave it at that. But that would still land Iris in hot water...

  Ah, damn it! Why can’t I think of anything?! If only this were all some kind of mistake... Wait a minute. Was it?

  “Hey, Iris?”

  “Yes?”

  Iris paused her conversation with the doctor and turned to me.

  “There’s something I’d like to ask if you can remember. The tip the Greater Galactic Federation received... What exactly did it say?”

  “Hmm...”

  Iris looked at me dubiously for a moment, but without any particular objection, she began thinking on it. After a while...

  “The report we received was anonymous and rather vague. All it said was something about how Rekka Namidare’s presence had been confirmed in this universe through various magics and technologies, and that you were being held by the agency—”

  “Hang on,” I said, stopping Iris so I could ask a vital question. “The part of the message about the agency holding me... Did it say exactly where I was being held?”

  “Huh? There’s only one agency, no?”

  “I knew it!” I shouted, slapping my knees with my hands.

  Iris looked at me curiously.

  “What’s this about, Rekka?” the doctor asked, apparently also finding my behavior strange.

  “It’s just like you said, Doctor. The extremists are an offshoot of the agency, but that’s not widely known.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Which means that to the outside, the agency is one unified organization. But in truth, it’s not.”

  “Aha!” the doctor exclaimed, seemingly coming to the same realization I had.

  “So... What? I don’t really follow. You’re saying the agency actually consists of two factions? What does that have to do with—”

  “The extremists are the ones holding Rekka Namidare.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s all you need to tell them.”

  The agency was one organization as far as the outside world was concerned, but part of it had splintered off into a radical group that now functioned completely separately. They’d set up their own headquarters and everything. That gave us a chance to send Iris after the extremists—and she could still say she’d attacked the agency!

  “Iris, you return to the command center after this and tell your people this: you found out that the people hiding Rekka Namidare are actually agency radicals. We don’t care if you win against them. But the doctor belongs to a completely different faction of the agency—the pacifists—so the federation can’t politically demand anything from her or the other pacifists, right?”

  “I might just be able to get away with that... But by that logic, the pacifists and these so-called radicals are actually two different entities.”

  Hearing this, Iris turned to the doctor for confirmation. She nodded and said...

  “Indeed. We’re on very bad terms with one another and have diverging views on just about everything. It’s very fair to say we’re two different entities.”

  “Hmm... And where might this radical base be?”

  “Wouldn’t L know that?” I asked, turning to her.

  “Well, yeah,” she said with a small nod.

  At one point, she had been on the extremists’ side. Of course she would know where their base was. If the federation fleet was so certain to win, then we just had to change their target... This is what you meant by switching things up, right, Tokiwa? Maybe I was wrong and she’d just get mad at me for misinterpreting what she’d said, but right now I was thanking her from the bottom of my heart.

  “All right. I will attack the radicals under the auspices that they are part of the agency. That information cannot be refuted with the information anyone has now, so not even King Satamonia will be able to challenge it. Moreover, the doctor does not have any ties to the radical faction, so we cannot rightfully demand anything from her regarding the radical faction’s actions.”

  Iris summed up the plan for everyone, then looked up at me.

  “Wh-What?”

  “Nothing. It’s just...”

  “Just what?”

  “This brings back memories... The real Rekka that saved me, Satsuki, and Harissa was pretty much a regular human back then. He would squeeze out every last drop of wit to save us, just like this.”

  “...”

  I had heard how future Rekka had undergone a transformation that made him something superhuman. Surely that gave him more options when it came to solving stories. He had a lot more to rely on than just his wit, after all. While it wasn’t a question of which was better, seeing my old-school methods was clearly nostalgic for Iris.

  “For now, we have our plan. All that’s left is for me to return. I’ll make up something about where I went and what happened with the intruders. Good luck to you all on your end.”

  “Ah, wait a minute...”


  When Iris stood up, I hurriedly called out to her.

  “What is it?”

  “Um, there’s one more thing I’d like to ask.”

  “What is it?” she asked, her arms folded.

  “If possible, I’d like you to refrain from attacking the extremists’ base too.”

  “Why?”

  “My heroines might be being held there, so I’d like the time to rescue them,” I answered honestly. “But I really don’t want to see anyone die here.”

  In the end, that was it. And in response to my naive request, Iris said...

  “You really haven’t changed at all there.”

  She then poked my forehead gently with her finger and smiled.

  Chapter 6: The Problem Right in Front of Me

  “First, my fleet will surround the extremist base and demand surrender. Unless they have something up their sleeve, we shouldn’t expect much resistance. There aren’t many who would dare to stand against a federation fleet armed to the teeth, after all. And while that’s going on, you all should be able to move freely.”

  The extremists didn’t yet know we’d made contact with Iris. The fact that they were holding the past heroines hostage was a big secret, so the first thing they’d do when Iris demanded surrender would be to try and hide or relocate the heroines. That meant that while Iris was negotiating with the extremists, we had to sneak in and figure out where they were keeping the girls.

  “Shall we begin the operation?”

  In order to sneak in to the extremists’ base, we borrowed a small spaceship from Iris. Harissa cast her invisibility spell on it, and we quietly departed from the midst of the federation fleet.

  “Will we really be okay with just my magic?”

  “Probably.”

  In order to avoid radar detection, we’d specifically picked out a ship with high-spec stealth functions. If, between that and Harissa’s magic, the extremists still discovered us, then... Well, I was willing to cross that bridge when we got there.

  Fortunately, however, all my concerns turned out to be unfounded. We safely arrived at the extremists’ base—which was really feeling like the final boss’s castle at this point—without issue. The base itself was on an asteroid that was roughly one quarter the size of Earth’s moon. The entire asteroid had been terraformed and had a proper atmosphere, so it looked like we wouldn’t need space suits once we got there. We stealthily landed some distance from the base and got ready before setting out.