Antagonist Protection Service

Upon the dawn of the Fifth Day, we were down to eight.

The little sister "James" did also not appear. The mother "Peter" as well as her son "Andrew" both stayed with her in the secluded confines of the South Transept to keep the now lone girl company, and I expected not to see them for most of our remaining days.

The boy was allowed in there since last night due to both his age and because of the consensus that it wouldn't be good to separate him from his mother, who seemingly took it upon herself to care for the girl who had lost her brother.

It wouldn't do anyone any favours to keep the two apart, and I don't think anyone would complain about something small like that, anyway.

Incidentally, I noted that the votes on the altar did not vanish even after the voter died, meaning I would have to keep "John's" persisting, unknowable vote in mind.

In the meantime, "Matthew" and I were the ones to fully cover the body of the deceased and line it up with the rest in the corner of the nave. Strangely, I noticed that none of the bodies were decomposing as you would ordinarily expect them to.

Needless to say, they still smelt something awful, and everyone made sure to stay well away from them, but it nevertheless was an odd detail that I found myself considering for just a while.

Anyway, I expected to just do it myself, but surprisingly, he was the one who suggested it first.

We were the only two who would be staying in the North Transept from now on, so perhaps it was due to being part of the last two men remaining that he felt a sort of responsibility. Regardless, I wasn't one to deny that for him, and if someone else wanted to take some of the load off, of course I would welcome it.

It didn't take a lot of effort thanks in part due to "John's" surprisingly selfless act of taking his blankets to sleep in the nave last night, saving us the trouble of moving him out afterwards.

Incidentally, ever since this Decalogue Trial began, I wondered if it was intentional that no one staying in the South Transept had become victimised, or if it was mere coincidence.

All of the girls and women were safe, utterly unharmed since the very beginning.

I wondered if that might change today.

『5 - "Honour thy father and thy mother."』

When we all gathered in the nave, or at least those of us who still had the will to do so, no one posed the question of 'who sinned'. It needn't be asked, and in the first place, three people were not leaving the South Transept's bedroom in any case.

That was something that made me concerned about whether we would be able to convince any of them to name the Protagonist as 「Judas」, but we still had the time to figure that out.

Today's sinner could be any one of those three, and I wondered if perhaps "James", the heartbroken little sister in that room right now, was in fact the one who wouldn't confess.

After all, to someone like that... mightn't they view this as an opportunity to be reunited?

It was a dark consideration, but something I felt to be just realistic.

With that spark of a hope in her heart, disenfranchised from the chance at sharing a conversation, a meal, or a hug with her family ever again... she might then prefer to speak of nothing.

In the end, indeed, nobody confessed.

And by the time dusk fell upon us survivors of the Fifth Day, we waited for yet another.

Thus, the sun of the Sixth Day dawned.

❖─────★★☆☆☆─────❖

For the third day in a row, I woke up to something other than the stench of blood.

Yesterday, it was the peace of knowing that nothing would happen and "John's" sacrifice of choosing not to sleep in a bed for his final night.

Today, it was the melancholic fact of a young girl's demise.

――At least, I thought so, but when "Peter" came into the kitchen for three portions of breakfast, I realised something was wrong.

The girl was alive. So was the mother and her son.

Then, who...?

'...Ah.'

"So it was that guy..."

Eventually, I came to the understanding that it could only have been the ruffian.

Everyone else was alive, after all, albeit disheveled in their appearances. Once I grasped that truth, I fell into thought for a while. It certainly made sense to me that someone with that crude character might not honour his parents, but that also meant my previous guess was wrong.

The only exception could have been if she confessed secretly to Cecilia while they were both in the South Transept, but I had no way of knowing that as things stood, and I doubted it anyway.

Fortunately, the answer to that mystery would soon be revealed, for this was the Sixth Day.

『6 - "Thou shalt not kill."』

Someone here was a murderer.

"Matthew", "Thomas", "Peter", "Andrew", "James"... I was an outsider, Cecilia was the Antagonist, and the Protagonist was already accounted for.

It could only be one of those five.

Eating my breakfast alone by the raised altar on this morning, passively watching some of the others as they passed to and from the kitchen and their respective Transepts, I silently pondered who it could be.

Maybe they were all acting so solitary precisely because they also recognised what Day it was, just like me.

Of course, none of them gave off the energy of being a killer, bar the witch I suppose, but such 'vibes-based' reasoning was irrelevant here. We knew it wasn't her.

One of them was, undoubtedly, a murderer.

Someone... like me perhaps. Although I knew it couldn't possibly have been me.

After all, I was an outsider here, and there's no way I could have taken over the body of whoever was in my place to begin with... at least, I didn't think so.

It hadn't happened so far... unless the Librarian had been not-so-honest with me regarding my disguises.

[Enki! How could you say something so mean?! Certainly, certainly certainly I have not lied to you! I would not do such a terrible thing!]

'Right, right. Don't get too worked up, I didn't actually doubt you.'

[Please and thank you! It is very awful to imagine, in fact!]

"Haha... Uh, sorry. What was it, 'fret not', right? I trust you, don't worry."

[Certainly! I will do my best!]

Either way, really, what were the chances that the one I took over would be the one who committed murder? And in the first place, although the inscription indeed mentioned Twelve Apostles, that didn't necessarily indicate anything.

Wasn't it already decided that the twelfth, 「Judas」, was reserved for an unknown?

Ten sinners, plus Cecilia. Ten Commandments.

It simply doesn't make sense for there to be an eleventh, whether mathematically or logically, so it cannot be me.

That only left the question of who it could be among the aforementioned five.

For starters, I doubted it could be "Andrew", the little boy. He only appeared to be around six years old, so it would be preposterous to suspect him of murder. The same went for "James", the little sister who looked about nine years old or so.

That immediately removed two from the equation, leaving the mother and the highschooler duo.

More of me believed it to be the mother than either of the other two, though I wasn't quite sure why. Perhaps it was due to the latters' ages, their apparent innocence, or the fact that they were the two I had spent the most time with during these past days that I was prone to viewing them with a certain bias.

Regardless of what it was, something about the mother seemed odd, and when I looked at her hands, constantly quivering...

"...Her hands?"

Suddenly, something occurred to me.

'Wait... have I ever seen her wearing a ring...?'

Like a bolt of lightning, an idea emerged in my brain that she might have killed her husband... Well, that was if she ever had one. It wasn't all that uncommon for people to have kids outside of wedlock, after all.

Regardless, there was also no evidence whatsoever that she had ever done such a thing―this was pure conjecture with no standing basis, and all I was doing was throwing out speculatory claims to find an answer.

But, if it wasn't her, then it could only have been one of the other two, and I couldn't imagine either of them doing something like killing a person...

'It has to be her, right?'

By the time people were convening in the nave, I had yet to erase my doubt.

"Peter" and the two children were not present today as well, but because Cecilia and the rest of us were, I didn't think it really mattered.

Myself, Cecilia, the Protagonist, "Matthew", and "Thomas" were all who were present.

In other words, unless the mother wished to die on this day, it could only be one of the latter two who was the sinner.

"..."

"..."

The two stood before each other in silence, and as my own gaze flickered between them, I noticed one of them had their eyes wide open, evidently shocked.

That person must have known that it wasn't themself, meaning it was undeniably the other.

I also realised that, and my brows shot up in turn.

Still, no matter if we now knew who committed the crime, they still had to confess.

"I-I did it..."

And eventually, confess they did.