2
A few days passed.
In a corner of an Imperial forces’ base…
“Haa…haah…This is huge, everyone! Something big is happening!” Commander Mismis of Unit 907 ran into the conference room carrying an unfamiliar poster. “Something huge is happening!”
“Boss, whenever you say that there’s huge news, it’s never a big deal.”
The first to react was the silver-haired sniper sitting in the corner of the room, Jhin.
“Wait… Let’s hear her out, at least. What happened?”
“This really is amazing this time! They’re reviving a legendary event from a decade ago!”
She seemed very proud of herself. Mismis unfurled the poster.
“It’s called the Lord BOX! It was a hugely successful event ten years ago!”
“…Huh? What is that?”
“Oh? You don’t know, Jhin? Well, Iska must know at least,” Mismis said.
“I haven’t heard of it, either.”
Iska met Jhin’s eyes and shook his head.
What was the Lord BOX?
Iska was born and raised in the Imperial capital, but any events from a decade ago had occurred when he was a child. It was far, far off in his memories as far as he was concerned.
“Ten years ago, Jhin and I weren’t even ten years old. Now that you mention it, I might have heard about something like that…”
“Wait, then if I can remember it clearly, does it mean I’m that much more mature than the two of you?!”
“N-no, that’s not quite…”
“Are you saying that since I’m a mature, twenty-two-year-old adult that you don’t know what I’m talking about?! I guess that makes it a generational difference!”
“That’s a complete misinterpretation of what I meant!”
He somehow stopped Commander Mismis, who had started to talk very fast.
“A-anyway, Commander… What’s the announcement on the poster about the event?”
“Right. I saw it near the entrance to the base. I think they’ve probably been put up in the stations and all over the streets, too.”
The announcement was printed in gaudy colors on the poster.
THE LORD BOX IS OPEN!
A GIGANTIC EVENT IN WHICH THE LORD TAKES QUESTIONS, CONCERNS, AND REQUESTS FROM THE PEOPLE AND MAKES WISHES COME TRUE!
That was what was written on the poster Iska was looking at.
“What kinds of questions from the people?” he asked.
“Well, you know how the Lord hardly ever goes out. It’s like we don’t even know them. So you can ask stuff like ‘What kind of stuff are you normally up to, Your Excellency?’ or ‘What’s your favorite food?’ and things like that. Anyone’s allowed to submit. That way, we feel closer to them! That’s what it’s all about.”
“Oh, I get it… Yeah, they are kind of mysterious.”
Iska had met the Lord just once in the past. But even then, the Lord had been on the other side of a curtain, and they hadn’t met face-to-face.
Everything about the Lord seemed mysterious.
And now they could learn more about the personality and background of such an important figure through the Lord BOX.
“Commander, what is this part about requests from the people?”
“That part’s amazing, too! For example, ten years ago, someone asked them to increase the number of national holidays, and they actually did it! And someone else asked for a theme park, and they actually built one on the outskirts of the Imperial capital.”
“That was why they made that theme park?!”
Even Iska knew about that. Back when he’d been a kid, for some reason, the theme park had been built out of the blue.
“Then this event really is huge!” he said.
“I already told you that! The event from ten years ago was really popular, too! And now, the legend’s back!” Commander Mismis’s eyes sparkled. “Each person in the Empire gets one submission slip. You’re allowed to write whatever you want on it! You can write any concern, question, or request, and the Lord will respond!”
“Wow… That does sound interesting.”
Naturally, the people would be happy to have their wishes come true. The Lord would also probably gain approval by granting those wishes. It was a win for both sides.
“There are probably going to be a lot of submissions. Does the Lord get to choose which ones to fulfill?”
“No, it’s a lottery. I’m pretty sure the Lord selected them at random ten years ago, too. There are probably hundreds of thousands of submissions, so it’s tough to get selected, but I think that makes it all the more exciting for the people who are.” Commander Mismis exhaled dramatically after her passionate spiel. “It’s a fun event, so I wish it’d happen every year, but it takes a lot of effort and money. I mean, they made a whole theme park and increased the number of holidays we have, so it must have been a lot of work for people in all sorts of departments.”
That was why it only happened once a decade. Iska could understand why Commander Mismis was so excited.
“Are soldiers allowed to join in, too?”
“Of course!” Commander Mismis nodded. “We’ll each get one submission slip. So I’m counting on you two, Iska and Jhin.”
“Counting on what?”
“You’ve got to write the same thing on your slips: increase the adorable, charming Commander Mismis’s salary by three times.”
“No way am I writing that!”
“It’ll be fine! I’ll write it, and I’m going to ask Nene, too. That increases the chances of us being selected! And I’m sure you’d be happy if my salary were three times as large, Iska!”
“I wouldn’t, though!”
“I’ll loan you this ballpoint pen!”
“You’re getting way ahead of yourself!”
Commander Mismis was already trying to push the pen into his hands. They hadn’t even gotten their submission slips, but she was already raring to go.
“I think there are better things we could ask the Lord…”
“For sure. This is stupid,” Jhin murmured. “We only get one slip, which means one chance at a request. I’m not gonna use something so important on something that silly. Besides, if you want more money, just work more. In the first place—”
As Jhin was making his very reasonable point with a lecture, the conference room door burst open.
“I’m back!”
A girl with vibrant red hair came in. It was Nene.
Nene had just gotten back from her lunch break. Iska and the others zeroed in on the unfamiliar white pieces of paper in her hands.
“Iska, big bro! Do you know about the Lord BOX?”
“We were just talking about that. So, Nene… Are those things in your hand…?”
“Yup! I got the submission slips for us!”
There were four slips in total, enough for Iska, Jhin, Nene, and Commander Mismis.
“We were waiting for you, Nene!” Commander Mismis turned gleefully to Nene. “Okay, so make sure to write on your submission slip ‘Increase the adorable, charming Commander Mismis’s salary by three times its size.’ Iska and Jhin are going to, too!”
I’m not.
No way.
Iska and Jhin grumbled as Nene opened her eyes wide in surprise.
“What?! You can ask for something like that?!”
“That’s right, Nene!”
“Then I could have three times the salary… No, actually, I think I’d ask for an uninhabited island near the Empire to use as my exclusive secret base!”
“That’s ridiculous!” Iska shouted before he could stop himself.
Commander Mismis’s demand had been pushing it, but Nene’s was going way beyond that.
“You can’t just ask for whatever you want in the Lord BOX—”
“I’ve heard everything!”
Slam!
The door, which had most certainly been locked, blew open.
“Morning, Unit 907! Allow me, the Lord’s very own staff officer, to tell you all about the Lord BOX!”
“Huh? Ms. Risya?” Iska was caught off guard and tilted his head when the staff officer suddenly appeared.
Why had she come to their conference room?
“Hee-hee-hee. I heard all of you talking.”
“This room was locked, and it should be fully soundproofed…but it’s good you came, Ms. Risya. We have some questions.”
“Oh? What is it, Isk?”
“Commander Mismis and Nene want to ask for something ridiculous during the Lord BOX event…”
“What exactly would that be?”
“Commander Mismis wants three times her salary, and Nene wants her own deserted island.”
“Seems possible.”
“It does?!”
“Well, this is the Lord we’re talking about.” Risya crossed her arms, acting as if the whole matter was obvious. “Isk, you should know. The Lord is the most important person in the largest country in the world. In other words, the Lord has the greatest authority in the world. Anything is possible.”
“I can see that, but…”
“Look, I get it, Isk. You’re planning on asking for something moderately reasonable, aren’t you? But it’s all right. There are going to be tens of thousands of requests like theirs from all over the Empire. Everyone thinks the same thing.”
Apparently, that had been taken into consideration.
Even if Commander Mismis and Nene submitted a different request, many people in the Empire would submit similar ones.
“Oh, one correction, though. It’s not accurate to say the requests are similar to theirs.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s worse than that. For example, some of the worst ten thousand are things like ‘Make a law where all the beautiful women in the Empire have to be naked all the time.’”
“That’s going too far!”
Apparently, at least ten thousand bottom-feeder perverts lived in this vast Empire.
“Unfortunately, Their Excellency wanted to do this event on a whim. Do you understand the dangers that are lurking, Isk?”
“What do you mean?”
“If the Lord picks that submission in the lottery, it’ll actually become a law.”
“You can’t be serious?!”
A law that required beautiful women to live fully in the nude. If that actually happened, everything would be over. The whole world would look coldly on the Empire.
“B-but surely, the Lord has some common sense, at least…”
“Quite the opposite! The Lord might actually do it, because of how Their Excellency is! This happened because the Lord was bored! Their Excellency would be thrilled to make something impossible happen!”
“Isn’t it your job as staff officer to stop them?!”
“That’s not gonna happen.” Risya’s answer was immediate. “Their Excellency will do anything when they’re bored! And the Lord doesn’t think about the consequences of these jokes! Or about budgets or deadlines!”
“Should a person like that really be leading the nation?!”
“So we need to sift those out ahead of time…”
Risya swiftly turned around. She pointed at the four submission slips Nene held.
“This is insider information, but we secretly filter the submissions before the Lord BOX is sealed up. Even though we get millions of Lord BOX submissions and lots of ridiculous ones like those, we also get trivial questions and concerns.”
“For example?”
“Things like ‘My husband’s snoring is too loud, so please do something about it’ or ‘My cat ran away. Have you seen it?’ and things like that.”
“That perverse submission is ten times worse than I expected the trivial ones to be!”
“But we get crazy requests like those!” Risya smacked the desk. “So we try to get rid of as many of them as we can. We can’t do that with a machine, so we need to use manual labor. That’s why I need to gather help from the Imperial forces.”
In that moment, the atmosphere in the conference room changed. The friendly atmosphere turned frigid.
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Oh, what’s wrong, Unit 907? Why did you all go quiet?”
Risya just kept smiling.
But the four of them knew better. When Risya smiled like that, they were in danger.
“So, Mismis, are you free next week?” Risya asked.
“What?” Commander Mismis raised her head. She looked entirely confused, as though she hadn’t been listening. “Oh, sorry, Risya. I was just thinking about something else and didn’t catch that.” As she said that, Commander Mismis cleaned up the pens that she had left out and quickly gathered the papers on the table into a binder. She was making a quick exit. “All right!” Commander Mismis swiftly turned away. “Good luck with gathering people to help with the Lord BOX, Risya. I need to head to our next training prac—”
“Oops, my hand slipped.” Risya pressed a button and the door of the conference room promptly sealed shut right in front of Mismis, who was trying to leave.
“You locked us in?!”
“Ohhh, Mismis, where do you think you’re going?” Risya swayed as she stood up. Her black-rimmed glasses flashed eerily as she slowly herded Mismis into a corner of the room. “I’ve got a teensy favor to ask you. Would you be so kind as to hear me out?”
“No, no, no! I’m not going to do something that’d require that much work!”
“But I need a few more helpers to sort through the Lord BOX submissions. About four more.”
“I said I’m not doing it!”
“Oh, what a coincidence. Looks like I’ve got four reliable people right here. You must have come here for me!”
“But you’re the one who came to us, Risya!”
“Mismis.”
“Urgh?!”
She was truly cornered. Risya looked serious as she looked down on Mismis, whose back was to the wall.
“We are friends, aren’t we?”
“Uh…urgh…!”
“Pretty puh-lee-suh?”
A short silence followed. As Iska and the others watched, Mismis held out for nearly a full minute.
“……Okay…”
Then Commander Mismis abandoned all hope.
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