Chapter 29 — Weighted
Hayato walked to Chamber 2.
The door was open, the interior fully visible through the transparent walls. He could see the chair bolted to the floor over the pressure plate. The tablet mounted on the right wall. The oxygen tank on the left. And scattered across the floor — books, metal weights, a wooden block, some kind of dense polymer cube.
He stepped inside.
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, the door began to close. Not slowly — quickly, with the decisive motion of a mechanism that had received its signal and was executing its programmed response. It sealed with a soft *hiss*, and a light above the doorframe turned from green to red.
Locked.
Hayato turned.
Through the transparent walls, he could see the others entering their chambers. Yumi stepping into Chamber 5, her small frame dwarfed by the space. Megumi entering Chamber 1 with the calm, measured movements of someone who'd already accepted the situation. Sachiko in Chamber 3, her posture rigid, her face unreadable.
One by one, the doors closed. One by one, the lights turned red.
Eight chambers. Eight people. Eight locked doors.
The tablet on Hayato's wall flickered to life.
He stepped toward it, his eyes scanning the display.
---
**[ CHAMBER 2 ]**
**[ CURRENT WEIGHT ON PLATE: 0.0 KG ]**
**[ TARGET WEIGHT: 100.0 KG ]**
**[ PLAYER WEIGHT: 70.0 KG ]**
**[ ITEMS REQUIRED: 30.0 KG ]**
---
Below that, a list:
---
**[ AVAILABLE ITEMS IN CHAMBER 2: ]**
- Book Set (12.0 kg)
- Metal Weight A (8.0 kg)
- Metal Weight B (5.0 kg)
- Wooden Block (4.0 kg)
- Polymer Cube (3.0 kg)
**[ TOTAL ITEM WEIGHT: 32.0 KG ]**
---
*Thirty-two kilograms available. I need thirty. Close. Very close.*
Below the item list, another section:
---
**[ OTHER CHAMBERS: ]**
---
A grid showing all eight chambers, their current plate weights (all zero — no one had sat down yet), and their available item totals:
- Chamber 1: 22 kg
- Chamber 2: 32 kg (his chamber)
- Chamber 3: 45 kg
- Chamber 4: 58 kg
- Chamber 5: 76 kg
- Chamber 6: 38 kg
- Chamber 7: 29 kg
- Chamber 8: 25 kg
Hayato's mind processed the numbers instantly, cross-referencing them against the player weights Takeshi had collected:
- Megumi (90 kg) in Chamber 1 needs 10 kg → has 22 kg → **excess: 12 kg**
- Hayato (70 kg) in Chamber 2 needs 30 kg → has 32 kg → **excess: 2 kg**
- Sachiko (62 kg) in Chamber 3 needs 38 kg → has 45 kg → **excess: 7 kg**
- Daichi (60 kg) in Chamber 4 needs 40 kg → has 58 kg → **excess: 18 kg**
- Yumi (55 kg) in Chamber 5 needs 45 kg → has 76 kg → **excess: 31 kg**
- Ryota (67 kg) in Chamber 6 needs 33 kg → has 38 kg → **excess: 5 kg**
- Katsurou (73 kg) in Chamber 7 needs 27 kg → has 29 kg → **excess: 2 kg**
- Takeshi (78 kg) in Chamber 8 needs 22 kg → has 25 kg → **excess: 3 kg**
*Everyone has excess. Which means we can all reach exactly 100kg by discarding the right items. But the sequence matters. When someone escapes, their leftover items cascade to the next chamber. If we escape in the wrong order, someone downstream ends up with too much weight and no way to get rid of it because the tubes only go clockwise.*
*We need to calculate the optimal sequence. Who goes first, who goes second, all the way to eighth. And we need to do it before the water reaches a level where panic overrides logic.*
Hayato looked through the transparent wall toward Chamber 3.
Sachiko was staring at her tablet, her lips moving slightly — subvocalizing calculations. Her hands were no longer shaking. She'd locked into problem-solving mode, her mind treating this as an equation rather than a death trap.
In Chamber 5, Yumi had sat down in the chair. The tablet in her chamber updated — Hayato could see the numbers change even from here, displayed on the screen visible through multiple transparent walls:
**[ CHAMBER 5: 55.0 KG ]**
Her body weight. The pressure plate was reading her mass.
In Chamber 1, Megumi was moving items around, physically sorting them by weight, her movements efficient and precise.
In Chamber 8, Takeshi was looking at his tablet, then looking around the octagon at the other chambers, his eyes moving in sequence — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 — mapping the circuit.
Then the voice returned.
---
**[ ALL PLAYERS HAVE ENTERED CHAMBERS. ]**
**[ THE GAME WILL NOW BEGIN. ]**
**[ FLOODING COMMENCES IN TEN (10) SECONDS. ]**
---
A new countdown appeared on every tablet:
**[ 0:10 ]**
**[ 0:09 ]**
**[ 0:08 ]**
Hayato sat down in the chair.
The pressure plate registered his weight immediately:
**[ CHAMBER 2: 70.0 KG ]**
He looked at the items on the floor. Thirty kilograms needed. Thirty-two available. He needed to select exactly thirty and discard two.
*But which two? And when?*
*It depends on the sequence. It depends on who goes before me and what they send. It depends on—*
**[ 0:03 ]**
**[ 0:02 ]**
**[ 0:01 ]**
**[ 0:00 ]**
The water came.
---
Author's Note
Hey everyone, this is your author, LostLegacy.
I wanted to let you know that this chapter has a few issues I wasn't able to fix in time. For example, Ryota's weight is listed as 67 kg, which isn't realistic for his age, and there are a few other small mistakes as well. 😔
I've been really busy lately, so I couldn't re-edit the chapter before releasing it. When I have more time, I'll go back and fix everything properly.
Thank you so much for your understanding and support!
— LostLegacy