There was one question that Tachibana Kohei asked me during my time in the Ideal Human Project. At that time, I simply interpreted it as a meaningless piece of small talk. However, now, almost eight years later, I realise that it had an ulterior meaning, just like everything else that he said to me.
—Mizuhara, why do you think I started the Ideal Human Project.
My initial answer at that time was that it was so he could prove that nurture would always beat nature. I said that it was his justification to demonstrate that he could create the perfect human.
Now, I know the real answer.
—It was because he loved Tachibana Emi very much.
He would do anything to protect her, even if it meant ruining the lives of hundreds of other children.
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"Mizuhara, what have you gotten from your spins?"
I looked back at Hamasaki. She seemed weirdly talkative with me.
"I've got three attack tokens."
I didn't have any reason to hide my items.
"Ah, I skipped the second one, but I got a special bonus from the first one."
The special bonus.
"What was it."
"Apparently, I get to choose a random student, and it shows me all the items they've got."
It seemed like a pretty harmless ability if we were just judging off of the first two lotteries. However, it could give insight if the class were to target a specific student for expulsion. It could also aid with efficiency since you could see exactly how many defence tokens someone had. By the look on her face, it seemed that she had also made an observation regarding her item.
It was something that could detect whether someone was lying or not. That might be an even stronger weapon than its actual purpose.
- *** -
[Lottery 3]
- Lose a life - 50%
- Gain a Shield - 20%
- Gain FOUR defence tokens - 20%
- Gain a special bonus - 10%
[Lottery 3]
A Shield allows the user to only be attacked by the student who uses the highest number of attack tokens on them. All other attacks from other students are considered invalid.
- *** -
The Shield was a very purposefully designed item. Reading its description, it basically forced people into one-vs-ones, stopping any coordinated attacks on a single person. However, most of its strength was in the fact that you couldn't deduce whether they had it or not.
I assumed that items were going to be tradable at the end of the exam, as such, someone could just gather all the attack tokens themselves to attack someone.
It was a powerful tool. However, it couldn't save you if you were targeted by someone highly intelligent.
There was some discussion between Kobayashi and Kaoru.
"Everyone, our best strategy is to have everyone spin the lottery every time. At the end, we can redistribute the items to best suit each person. You might lose some lives, but we'll compensate you with defence tokens at the end. We want as much leverage as we can to attack the other classes."
Furukawa agreed with her.
"Unless you're at risk of losing every single life, you should spin every time. That definitely seems like the best strategy at the moment."
Kaoru seemed to be regaining her confidence with Kobayashi and Furukawa's support.
I span the lottery wheel.
[You received: Special Bonus]
[Your special bonus is: Choose a person. Their number of attack and defence tokens swap.]
It was somewhat interesting of a bonus.
Considering the general theme that allocated more defence tokens than attack tokens, it could provide someone with the necessary offensive capacity to deal damage. I didn't really have much use for it myself, but it could be leveraged at the end.
Although, just seeing how things are going, all the items were probably going to be distributed around by Kaoru.
"Hey, Mizuhara. Do you want to bring down Furukawa with me?"
Hamasaki was talking to me once again.
I wonder why she held a grudge against Furukawa.
"Why do you want to bring him down?"
"It's pretty clear what he wants to do. He's always been selfish, you know? Everything he does is for his own benefit."
I suppose that was true, but I wasn't too interested in aiding her.
"I can't really be bothered with something like that."
"Ah... Mizuhara, you're the only other person who thinks rationally. If we wait, Furukawa's going to gain influence and slowly take over the class."
"I thought you were friends with him."
She seemed disgusted.
"What made you think that? He invited me to the library once when we were in 2-E, that was all. He's obviously just a selfish person who wants to use others."
To be fair, it would be a little bit of a pain if Furukawa was to take over the class. Kaoru's leadership was what allowed me to live freely for the most part. Judging by the current climate of the class, there was definitely doubt about Kaoru's capabilities.
It would mean that I wasted my effort in trying to keep Kaoru stable by protecting Kobayashi.
I wonder what Hamasaki's plan was. It seemed interesting to observe her at the moment, considering the fact that she seemed to be more self-aware than most other people.
I guess it could be interesting.
"What's your idea then," I asked.
She moved closer, whispering to me.
"We should both just target him with our attack tokens. There are some others in the class who don't like him very much, we can just directly take him down."
"He has some control over the class. He could easily use his leverage to protect himself."
He could simply ask for defence tokens from other members of the class. Drawing negative attention towards us wasn't going to be a good idea in any way.
Although, I did see some ways around it.
I did wonder how she'd handle this.
"Hamasaki, I won't directly get involved, but I'll give you some of my items at the end of the lottery. You can use them against him."
She looked at me with a surprised expression.
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