Antagonist Protection Service

Saying that casually, I quickly added.

"Oh, well, I'm sure we won't need to do much. So long as you confess and be careful not to sin, you'll be fine. Once the eleven days are up, we should be let free."

For a single instant I cast a sideways glance at Cecilia, curious how she might react to my words that were not at all confirmed, but for one reason or another, she didn't show any kind of reaction whatsoever.

I understood why she might want to keep her true identity hidden, however, so I didn't put any further thought into it.

"Uh... well, yeah, I guess I can do that. That girl's way too creepy anyway, so I'm fine with it. What do you think?"

Crossing his arms and saying that, "Matthew" turned to "Thomas", who nodded meekly in response.

"I also think she's suspicious... Um... all we have to do is say it?"

Her gaze, filled with visible concern, turned to me. Meeting it directly, I replied simply.

"That's right."

Perhaps that was the final little push they needed, as right after, they followed.

"Lilliana Weiss is 「Judas」..."

"L-Lilliana Weiss is 「Judas」."

Glancing at each of them as they appeared to look around warily while they spoke, the girl giving a small sigh afterwards, I wordlessly rose to my feet once it was done.

Making my way swiftly over to the apse's altar, I checked the first page.

『Lilliana Weiss names 「Judas」』

『Bartholomew names 「Judas」』

『Matthew names 「Judas」』

『Thomas names 「Judas」』

Four lines of crimson calligraphy were inscribed on the otherwise blank book. Seeing that written confirmation of our votes, I nodded with relief.

'Good... Wait, what?!'

――Just as I did so, a fifth line appeared right before my eyes.

『John names 「Judas」』

"..."

My mind froze for a few seconds, only being cut short thanks to a gentle voice from behind.

"Is everything alright?"

Snapping my head around, I saw Cecilia standing there with her head slightly tilted. Behind her, the other two remained seated, looking our way with apparent intrigue.

Staring at her for a moment, I calmed down, turning my attention back to the book for just a moment.

"...Yeah."

Thinking about it objectively, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, maybe it was even positive.

'Right... There's a good chance he would've voted for the Protagonist. It's just inconvenient that the target is anonymous...'

What's more, it was fine so long as we secured at least one of the remaining three in their group to vote for the Protagonist―If we could do that, it wouldn't even matter who "John" had voted for.

Turning around, I faced Cecilia, who was also peering over to see the changed contents of the book. Shooting a brief glance at the entry to the kitchen on the opposite side of the nave, I lowered my voice to a whisper and asked her.

"What do you think about any ways to find out who he voted for?"

Watching her silently read the blood-like words on the page, a small part of me wondered if she was ever going to reveal herself as the Antagonist at any point. I understood her reasoning if she was never going to do it, and that was undeniably the safest thing to do, but it would be more convenient if she was at the very least honest with me since I was on her side.

'I guess I could confront her myself... but is there really a need to do that?'

Just as such thoughts were floating around my mind, she turned her indecipherable gaze to me.

"I suppose we could ask him?"

I replied without hesitation.

"I'm not sure that's the best idea..."

Of course, asking "John" directly would probably give us the answer we wanted, but at the same time, it might put us in a bad position in the sense that we would be revealing the one and only weapon we had against the Protagonist.

Because "John" and his group are suspicious of not just the Protagonist but also Cecilia and myself, I held doubts whether he would trust what we had to say even if it was true that he wouldn't be negatively affected by it.

If we tried too hard to convince him that we were doing something good, or that we were only targeting the Protagonist, he might do something unpredictable out of distrust... no, someone paranoid like that was only ever unpredictable.

And in this sort of situation, an unpredictable person was the worst kind of obstacle.

The Protagonist was also unpredictable in that same sort of way.

In fact, I had already experienced a couple of times what kind of fear that guy was hiding. He showed me first-hand the past two mornings. I would have liked to get back at him for that, but unfortunately, what was important here was to clear the Contract, not satisfying my own desire for some payback.

'Can't let myself get distracted by things that don't matter...'

Glancing again at the small book, which now had one page almost entirely full of declarations, I noticed that the space each line took up left precisely one line open for the first page―meaning there were indeed twelve total votes if you were to count the second page.

In the following instant, something occurred to me.

Would the votes reset at the beginning of each day?

It was a subtle, yet important detail that I almost failed to consider.

If they didn't reset, then everyone would have to be much more careful about who they voted for since they could only do it once, and it didn't seem to be the case that rescinding a vote was possible.

If they did reset, then it would be much more beneficial to keep the reality of the book confidential; it would necessitate having to convince some of the others to vote on multiple days in a row were it to fail the first time, but it would also mean we had multiple chances to declare someone as 「Judas」.

Incidentally, that also led to the question of: Once someone was declared 「Judas」, would we have another chance to name someone else?

In that case, then even if we failed to have the Protagonist declared as 「Judas」 the first time around, so long as we eventually managed to declare her before the eleven days were up, we would win.

On the other hand, if we only had one chance, that would be a disaster.

Suppose that we had just one chance to name someone as 「Judas」. In addition, suppose that the votes did not reset each day, so everyone had no more than a single vote to name someone.

In that case, then if we failed to declare the Protagonist as 「Judas」, what would happen?

Would the Contract simply be impossible to complete from that point on?

'Surely not... right...?'

If there were an even number of votes between two or more suspects, or if someone other than the Protagonist was declared as 「Judas」... would everything be over?

Was it even possible to fail a 2-star Contract like that...?

Before the Librarian had a chance to respond to my growing concern, I made an attempt to sound it out and ease myself.

'...No. There must be another way, or maybe Cecilia's got something planned. If everything could get screwed up that easily, she would have said something... or would she?'

The more I thought about it, the more I began to doubt it, so I stopped, instead opting to contemplate something more productive―That was, how to go about convincing the other group to name the Protagonist as 「Judas」 instead of ourselves.

Alas, perhaps due to the growing sense of pressure pouring upon me, I ended up aimlessly thinking to myself about a plan that might be the solution, unable to come up with anything concrete.

Like that, the rest of the day passed without incident, and the dawn of the Fourth Day greeted us.