The Baka was troubled. He didn’t understand the situation at all. On top of that, the atmosphere was very unwelcoming. Why was that? Was it because he was a Baka? It probably was because he was a Baka.
…That’s how the Baka was troubled. But for now, it seemed that the fact that the Baka was just a Baka who was troubled had been conveyed. The eyes of the people around him had changed from “What is this guy!?” to “Is this guy a Baka?”.
“…Well then, I’ll explain in detail,”
“Okay! Thank you!”
“Can you even understand…?”
“I’m not confident, but I’ll do my best!”
The cat-like girl sighed softly. And finally, the eyes of the people around them changed from “Is this guy a Baka?” to “This guy is a Baka.” That was correct. He was a Baka.
“…Well, try your best to understand. So, first, I’ll explain about ‘time’,”
“Time?”
“Yes. …Did you see the watch on your left arm?”
The Baka, prompted by the girl’s words, looked at his left arm. There was the watch, and the hands were pointing to the beginning of ‘night’.
“It’s ‘night’ now. In other words, it’s break time.”
“I see.”
If it was break time, he felt somewhat relieved. The Baka liked working, but he also liked breaks.
“…And then, day will come. When it becomes day, the doors of day will be opened… and we have to do a ‘Game’ in those doors and ‘detoxify’.”
“Detoxify…?”
“To be precise, they said it’s not poison but a demon’s curse. …In short, we were injected with poison from the collar the moment the bell rang just now. That poison will kill us when the next bell rings. But if we use the device at the end of the ‘Game’, an antidote will be injected from the collar, and the effects of the poison can be delayed. We can extend our lives so that we won’t die until the bell of the next night… that’s how it is.”
The girl pointed at the collar on her neck with a disgusted look. The Baka muttered, “Whoa, that’s scary…” He didn’t understand it well, but he understood that ‘if you don’t work during the day, you’ll die at night!’.
It was at that moment.
“…Hey,”
The girl reacted with a twitch.
“You said you were Kabashima-kun, right?”
“Yeah! I’m Kabashima Tsuyoshi!”
The Baka puffed out his chest, happy that they remembered his name, while the girl’s face began to fill with some kind of impatience…
“Your collar, what happened to it? Why don’t you have a collar?”
…And then, the Baka remembered. Come to think of it, he didn’t have a collar.
“Ah, well, I’m a Baka, so I didn’t know how to take it off and just ripped it off…”
While the eight people each screamed, widened their eyes, or even fainted from not being able to keep up, the Baka was just feeling down.
…In his heart, the thought of the damages for the two doors and one collar he had also remembered weighed heavily on him…
“Y-You ripped it off!? How!?”
The Baka, who was feeling down, couldn’t stay down forever.
A nervous-looking guy, who had appeared at some point, was staring at the Baka’s neck with wide eyes, where there was no collar.
“Huh? I grabbed it with my hand, like this…?”
He tried to gesture, but it didn’t seem to get across. He was hysterically yelled at, “That’s impossible!” The Baka felt down. It was all because he was bad at explaining, he was sorry…
“T-That’s… metal, you know!? You ripped it off with your bare hands, are you serious!?”
“Yeah! I’m proud of being sturdy!”
While being looked at like a monster by a sexy lady, the Baka answered cheerfully. At work, he was often praised, “You’re really sturdy!” Muscle and sturdiness were the Baka’s pride.
“Hey, everyone. In other words, isn’t this Kabashima-san’s ‘Unique Ability’?”
But then, a friendly-looking guy said that.
“Unique Ability?”
“Yeah. It seems that each of us has been assigned one ‘Unique Ability’. In your case, it must be ‘Super Strength’.”
Unique Ability, Unique Ability, the Baka repeated in his mouth. Well, it was a word he had heard before. He also understood the meaning.
“I see. Then, what’s your Unique Ability?”
“Well, that’s…”
But the friendly-looking guy in front of him quietly averted his eyes from the Baka’s question. The Baka tilted his head, wondering what was wrong…
“There’s no way I’d tell you. Are you a Baka?”
“Ah, yeah. I’m often called a Baka. But why won’t you tell me?”
The sexy lady who came from the side was looking at the Baka with a Baka-like gaze.
“Listen? What we’re going to do from now on is a killing game, you know? Where would there be a Baka who would reveal their hand?”
“K-Killing game…?”
The Baka was confused. Certainly, he understood the rule that ‘if you don’t work during the day, you’ll die at night!’, but he didn’t think he had heard anything about a killing game!
Or was it that the Baka, being a Baka, had missed it or failed to understand it? The Baka became anxious.
“…The explanation was still in the middle,”
Then, looking up at the anxious Baka, the cat-like girl explained with an indescribable face. This person is kind! The Baka was happy.
“Well, I explained up to the point that if you don’t clear the game during the day, you’ll die as soon as night comes, right?”
“Yeah! I remember it well!”
The Baka was a Baka, but he was a Baka with a good memory. At work, he was often praised, “You’ve got a good knack for this! Even though you’re a Baka!”
“Can you see the lanterns hanging there?”
“Yeah. I have good eyesight.”
In addition, the Baka was a Baka with good eyesight. He could read a newspaper about 100 meters away. But such eyesight was not necessary here. Because there were nine lanterns hanging proudly around the large, magnificent door at the very back of this Great Hall.
“They say the souls of the dead enter those.”
“…Huh?”
“And it seems that the demon will grant wishes equal to the number of those.”
“Huh? Huh?”
The souls of the dead, into the lanterns. Well, that was fine. Maybe it was where the spirits went? The Baka understood that somehow.
But…
“Counting today as the first day, after the morning and night of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow… on the morning of the fourth day, that door will open. The demon is there, and there, he will grant the wishes of the survivors, equal to the number of the dead, that’s what was explained.”
“That’s why, the idea that ‘no one will die’ is unbelievable, right? Because all of us are here because we want to have our wishes granted. That’s why… we’re the kind of people who would be lured by a demon and participate in this Game.”
When the Baka saw the girl’s dark eyes, he didn’t know what to say anymore.
“…Do you also have something you want to have granted?”
“I do.”
The girl nodded. The Baka nodded, “I see,” and…
“So, what is it?”
“I won’t say.”
The moment he tried to get closer, he was cut off, and the Baka trembled, “Did I ask something bad!?” But the girl sighed at that too and went along with it. She was kind!
“…Think about it. For example, if there is one dead person and eight survivors. Then… there would be a fight between the eight people, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But… if there are five dead people and four survivors. Then, each person can have one wish granted. Of course, someone might betray you, but… under the condition that each person gets one wish granted, it seems like it would be possible to form an ‘agreement’, right?”
The meaning of the word agreement was clear. But the Baka didn’t quite understand it.
“Then, ‘what kind of wish this person wants to have granted’ is highly likely to be used as a material for negotiations to form a team, and conversely, ‘because this person’s wish is this, this person is likely to team up with this person’ could be revealed. Or maybe… there might be people who would be antagonized by someone if their wish was revealed.”
Hmm, the Baka tilted his head again. Of course, he didn’t understand.
“That’s why, it’s better not to say what your wish is, right? Even without that, almost everyone here is a stranger whose background is unknown.”
“Hmm, I don’t get it, but I understand! Anyway, it’s a secret what kind of wish I want to have granted, right!”
The Baka understood in his own way, and nodded with a smile, “If that’s the case!”
…The girl sighed at him.
“Well, um… I want to ask something, is that okay?”
Now then.
Now that he had somewhat understood the rules here, the Baka looked around at all eight people and proposed.
“I want to know everyone’s names soon. How about we introduce ourselves?”