Kirumi Tojo's Palace | The Ultimate Maid's Failures

[kandata]

By now everyone may be used to find themselves in bizarre locations, between going into palaces and visiting Nekyia. It might not come as a surprise that it has happened again.

What might come as a surprise, though...is how empty this place is.

All around you there's nothing more than a large, gray, featureless expanse. In the distance there seem to be bars, curving upwards to gather so, so high above you, possibly hundreds of miles above, so high it’s hard to distinguish.

It’s a cage. So unfathomably large. You could escape, were you to get to the edges of the cage, but...it would take forever. No matter how you look at it, you're trapped. The atmosphere is so...hopeless. Devoid of anything even remotely positive.

Not that you want to hang around for long, do you? After all, this is someone's palace. Not a place to stick around at. What to do, though?

It’s all so...empty. Silent. Featureless. A flat expanse of hard gray tiles.

Gather together, everyone. Gather and choose a direction. North, East, West, South. All directions look completely identical, but could it affect your time in this place, somehow? Probably not. But all treks start with the first step. Perhaps, if you get moving, you'll progress?

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[kandata]

[Kirumi chuckles sadly, once Joshua finishes]

...having to take such a decision is an unkind twist of fate. I do not know what most will think, but I feel you were taking the right decision.

Perhaps I am being too pragmatic, but it does seem as if you did what you could with what you had at hand. I will not presume how you feel, but sometimes the right choice still is one that will haunt you forever.

I hope you will not have to make such choices again.

[Well! Looks like Kirumi likes Joshua's answer, in many ways! Approved!

From the dumbwaiter, something comes: a third and last note, black paper and white letters.

'The trolley problem is, at its core, a simple question: are you capable of doing something horrible if it means stopping something worse from happening? The smaller the price to pay, the better. It is simple enough.

I am forcing myself to think of it as a matter of numbers. If I think even for a moment of everyone here as people, I know I will waver. I cannot think of them as the people I have been with and cooperated with. I must see them as a statistic, put feelings aside, and focus on the numbers.

While I do find odd some details about what the tablet showed me, I do not have the privilege of hesitating. Hesitating could mean the demise of countless lives. I cannot turn away and do nothing.

Lives that are depending on me. As long as everybody's fate is my responsibility, I cannot give myself the privilege of hesitating.

It is thirteen, versus several hundred millions. I will not fail. I will not die. No matter how low I must sink, how cruel I will have to be, or what torture I must endure, I cannot let everything crumble down. I cannot die and let everyone down, not after their future got placed into my hands.

For everyone's sake, for everybody who is relying on me, I will not die.'.

The last few words were bolded so strongly the paper almost broke.

Water fills the last bowl. It's dark red]