The scene shifted to a multimedia classroom — doors sealed, windows shut, every thread of outside light cut off.
The only illumination in the room came from four pairs of specially made glasses resting on the lecture table, their lenses blinking in alternating pulses of red and blue.
The four participants each took a pair and put them on.
A synthesized voice read out the rules of the test. Then it announced that the game had officially begun.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka noticed a red marker flickering at the edge of his lens. He glanced sideways — his gaze briefly meeting Kanzaki Ryuuji's, who stood not far from him.
Beep —
A soft chime.
The blood-red wolf icon that had been hovering in Ayanokoji's field of vision vanished in an instant. In its place appeared a small white sheep.
On Kanzaki Ryuuji's glasses, the indicator light shifted — from blue to red.
I see.
Ayanokoji's eyes dropped slightly. In that single moment, the underlying logic of the game clicked into place.
Eye contact triggers a swap.
On the surface, this looked like a death game — four people locked in a sealed room, forced to hunt and hide for the one surviving slot. A brutal, claustrophobic last-man-standing.
But in practice, the game's core penalty left a margin.
The losers wouldn't be eliminated outright. They'd simply be force-drafted into that evening's Black Sphere trial as random participants.
Since instant death wasn't on the table — for anyone accustomed to weighing costs before acting — burning through precious stamina in a cramped classroom brawl was obviously the worst possible move.
And sure enough.
Kanzaki Ryuuji, now holding the wolf identity, made no move to run or find cover.
He simply stood where he was, composed, and chose to cut straight through the pretense:
"I think everyone here has figured it out by now — this game only has one winner, and that winner is whoever holds the wolf."
"In a sealed classroom, whoever's carrying the wolf card becomes the target of everyone else. If this turns physical, a thirty-minute brawl isn't just impractical — it leaves us all battered and bleeding before tonight's real exam even starts."
Kanzaki swept the room with a steady gaze.
"Since there's only ever going to be one winner, rather than waste the limited stamina we have fighting each other — and showing up to face the Black Sphere's monsters already half-wrecked —"
"I think it would be simpler if we just made a deal."
"I'm curious how much any of you actually know about the Black Sphere exam."
"A deal?"
Kaneda Satoru from Class C adjusted his glasses, expression skeptical. "I'm listening."
On the other side of the room, Machida Koji from Class A stood with his arms crossed.
Kanzaki's gaze had swept past him moments ago — which meant he was now carrying the wolf card — yet he kept still, showing no sign of making a move.
Kanzaki Ryuuji deliberately skipped over Ayanokoji, who had retreated to a corner, and smiled slightly:
"Looks like everyone's already read the situation clearly. Saves me the trouble of spelling it out."
"If it's a deal, then let's talk about what each person actually has to offer."
He paused. When no one spoke first, he extended his hand — a voluntary gesture of goodwill:
"Then I'll start."
"To be honest, I don't have much to put on the table. Under the Black Sphere's rules, real-world money is worthless — and my personal point balance is only around 120,000, which clearly doesn't stack up against the value of winning outright."
"What I can guarantee is this: once the game ends, I'll hand over everything Class B currently knows about the Black Sphere — every rule, every monster weakness, every hidden mechanic — with zero embellishment and nothing held back."
Ayanokoji glanced at him quietly.
He had to admit — Kanzaki Ryuuji was smart. He understood how to read the room, and more importantly, he knew exactly how to leverage an information gap.
But in a black-box environment like this, with no enforcement mechanism, no one could truly trust anyone else.
As expected, Machida Koji let out an immediate, dismissive snort:
"When you strip it down, all you're really offering is intelligence."
"Empty words anyone can say. You think flapping your lips costs something? Please."
"Of course," Kanzaki replied, unruffled. "Which is precisely why I'm the one saying it — because anyone can."
"I'm more or less one of Class B's representatives. You're all aware of the principle Ichinose has built that class around — 'never abandon anyone, never break your word.' If I violate a promise and word gets out, my standing in Class B is finished. Permanently."
"My reputation is the collateral."
"Pretty speech," Kaneda Satoru scoffed, showing no mercy. "What if you're the self-sacrificing type? The kind who'd happily throw your own reputation under the bus for the sake of your class? We'd be giving you everything for nothing."
Machida Koji added: "Agreed. Concrete benefits are more persuasive than principles."
"Then I'm out of options~" Kanzaki spread his hands with a helpless shrug. "Besides the information, all I have to offer is my point balance. Split between everyone, you'd be looking at maybe forty or fifty thousand each."
He paused — then turned his head, gaze landing squarely on the one person who had been silent through all of it: Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
"Ayanokoji. Any thoughts?"
"Because if you don't have any, I'll just move on and hear what Machida and Kaneda are willing to put on the table."
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka raised an eyebrow.
He noticed, quietly, that the wolf card had already slipped back onto him without anyone making a sound.
He turned it over for a moment and reached a conclusion quickly.
The information he currently had access to was nothing that would actually appeal to this group. And if he didn't want to expose his real capabilities by forcing a three-on-one victory right now — then accepting Kanzaki's terms and minimizing his losses was the optimal play.
"Class D has the lowest scores. I don't have any intelligence worth paying for," Ayanokoji said, his voice flat.
"But honestly — none of the rest of you have anything that would be truly decisive either. Given that, it might just be worth taking Kanzaki at his word. And trusting the person standing behind him — Ichinose."
Seeing Ayanokoji fall into line, Kanzaki Ryuuji pressed forward while the momentum held:
"Since Ayanokoji is willing to trust me, let me offer a show of good faith in advance."
"You may or may not know this already — participants who get dragged into the exam as random entrants have their lives tied to the Black Sphere, with only one extra chance. But the people who were originally selected for the test can designate one person from their class to participate in their place, while also retaining their own option to join the trial."
Machida Koji clicked his tongue, unimpressed: "Don't try to sell us something we'd figure out in one attempt. And for all we know, Class B and Class D are working together specifically to target Class A and C — you're the only ones with those black combat suits."
Ayanokoji's mind turned over quietly.
So... Class A has already run their own experiments. Which means someone in Class A has extra access. Sakayanagi Arisu...?
Kanzaki Ryuuji had just opened his mouth to argue when Kaneda Satoru cut in, pushing his glasses up with one finger, his voice taking on a sly, cold edge:
"Even if they are targeting us — what exactly are we supposed to do about it?"
"Because if we end up on the losing side of this, we're still going to need the people with high-end equipment to keep us alive in tonight's trial. Picking a fight with the experienced players now would be the stupidest thing we could do."
Machida Koji went quiet.
He couldn't argue with it. When the gap in raw capability was this wide, getting on the veterans' bad side ahead of time was just bad strategy.
Judging the moment was right, Kaneda Satoru played his hand:
"Fine. I'll drop out of the running."
"But I want your full 120,000 points. Call it the interest Ichinose's class owes mine."
Kanzaki Ryuuji didn't hesitate. He turned immediately to Ayanokoji and Machida.
Machida Koji let out a resigned sigh. "...Alright. Give me 40,000 as a token gesture."
Ayanokoji made no unnecessary move. He went along with the current: "40,000 to me as well."
"Done."
Kanzaki nodded, a smile settling onto his face.
"Then in tonight's main trial — if any of you run into trouble, Class B will prioritize covering you."
A game that should have been drenched in blood had been quietly, completely defused.
The whole thing had taken on the air of a perfectly amicable arrangement — a living embodiment of Ichinose's philosophy of peace, apparently realized without a single drop of violence.
...
Not that any of it looked particularly impressive from Chris's god-mode vantage point.
He was pretty sure the Wolf and Sheep game was supposed to have an exploitable loophole. He'd lifted the ruleset almost directly from the source material — so where was the mind game he'd been waiting for?!
Probably...
Probably because he hadn't copied it completely faithfully. He'd adjusted a few variables, and apparently that was enough to lose something.
Fine.
To keep this from ending as a dud, he decided to give Ayanokoji — who had been absolutely phoning it in — a very small nudge.
Naturally, Chris had no intention of directly rewriting the game's rules, and even less intention of stripping them of their right to negotiate. He wasn't that petty.
He was simply going to add one line before the game wrapped up.
And so.
As the thirty-minute countdown ticked toward zero —
The four participants had reached an unspoken agreement, all carefully averting their eyes to let the wolf card stay with Kanzaki Ryuuji.
Beneath the feet of the three others — Ayanokoji included — blue luminescence began to rise from the floor.
Then a wall of ice-blue light materialized, accompanied by the cold chime of a system prompt.
[Test concluded.]
[Congratulations to Kanzaki Ryuuji for surviving as the Wolf.]
[As the winner of this round, please select one of the following rewards:]
[1. Personal S-points reward: 5 points.]
[2. Two uses of the privilege to exempt your entire class from forced conscription as random participants.]
[3. Unlock partial intelligence on this evening's main trial's hidden monster, plus a special 'winner's slot' granting additional entry into the main trial with the ability to earn scores.]
[So — will you choose to simply scrape by and survive?
Or —]
[Do you want to understand what it means to truly be alive?]
"!!!"
That final line landed.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka — who had been standing with his eyes lowered, calmly accepting the transfer sequence — suddenly looked up.
Behind those quiet, narrow eyes, something moved. Beneath the flat, still surface: a ripple. The faintest trace of something that could only be called surprise.
...Someone just played me.
——End of Chapter——
A friend's book — still a young seedling, but one worth watching. Give it a read:
Promo: 「Gal Demon Lord: Currently Seducing the Entire Nation」
"Goddess, could you teach me the secret to becoming a true master of winning over women?"
[Simple. First, you must rise to lead a people — one that was once glorious, now fractured by foreign invasion, humiliated, split apart, its people suffering.]
[Then: lighten the burden of taxation, govern with tireless dedication, tear down the old order, and build a new one where every citizen can flourish — until the loyalty of your subjects is absolute.]
[When the winds of the world shift and chaos erupts, sweep the land like an autumn storm — crush the warlords, unify the nation, then launch a great and thunderous war of vengeance.]
"So which nation are we talking about exactly..."
"The Demon Clan, of course."
____
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