Chapter 83 – Stamped on these lifeful things.

The night passed and I awoke to the sound of birds chirping outside my windowsill. With a yawn and a stretch, I sat up in bed. The first thing I did was open my status menu to remind myself of my standing.

[Name: Yarm] [Age: 45] [Level: 20]

[HP: 110] [MP: 60] [XP: -16,728] [LP:0] [GP: 1410]

[Body: 1] [Mind: 26] [Soul: 4]

[Titles: Villain, Lockpicker, Charmer, Explorer, Iron Will] [Skills: Cleanse, Spare Monster, Repair] [Items: Soundless Pick, Wall Compass, Lesser Mana Potion, 3 Acupuncture Darts, Sturdy Needles, Old Man Costume, Holy Water Vial, Cursed Coin, Demonic Horn, Succubus’ Chocolate Breastmilk] [Recipes: Tranquiliser] [Boosts: XP Boost (2 days left)] [Properties: Eastern Forest Hidden Dungeon] [Cosmetics: Silhouette]

I was greatly pleased by the amount of money I had on me. It wasn’t a small sum, and it was all mine, since I was no longer in debt. I considered freeing more people now that I was debt-free, but promptly decided against it. Without a plan, the next major crime I committed would be the precursor to my execution.

Plus, a grassroots movement wasn’t going to cut it. There was so much injustice happening on such a wide scale. I needed to think bigger if I wanted to stop it all. Though, I wondered something: would it be wrong to possibly save everyone, when instead I could definitely save a few people? Wasn’t I falling into cold pragmatism by focusing too hard on my objective?

I didn’t know, but I did know if I could save people along the way then I should.

I also remembered I gained a new title and with that came a new mission. With a few button presses, I opened the quest log.

[Quest Log]

[Hero Quest: Kill your first monster.]

[Villain Quest: Kill your first human.]

[Lockpicker Quest: Unlock your third eye.]

[Charmer Quest: Make someone fall in love with you.]

[Explorer Quest: Unlock a new area by visiting a viewpoint.]

[Iron Will Quest: Resolutely stand your ground in the face of death.]

I groaned and banged the back of my head against the headboard of my bed. I didn’t want to go anywhere near death, so I couldn’t purposefully complete the new mission. Even if I were to meet death by accident, I still didn’t want to stand my ground. If I ever faced death, my first and only instinct would be to run.

By the seems of things, I wouldn’t complete the new mission just like I wouldn’t complete the first two missions I had.

My stomach grumbled, so I chose to eat breakfast before doing anything else. I was feeling a lot better, but I needed some food after last night.

I entered the kitchen and whipped up a plate of jam on toast. I sat down at an empty table. The morning was livelier than usual. A lot more people were awake so early. I wondered if perhaps an event was occurring.

Almost by curse, Loftus came out of nowhere and plopped his rear next to mine. “Morning,” he said cheerfully.

With a low and irritated voice, I grumbled some unkind words back to him.

He laughed. “I can barely hear you. Must be tired after last night, huh?” Loftus sprinkled some pumpkin seeds over his breakfast porridge. “Want some?” He offered me the bag.

“No thanks,” I replied.

“Are you sure? They’re full of zinc. Perfect for when you’ve lost a lot of bodily fluids.” He raised his eyebrows up and down at me repeatedly.

I shook my head. Whatever he was talking about, I didn’t want to know. “You should try and take some B12,” I said. “Perfect for those who have psychosis.”

“But I don’t—”

“Is there something going on today?” I cut Loftus off to end the small talk. If he was going to sit next to me, I at least wanted him to be useful.

“You don’t know?” he said with surprise. “It’s Sports Day for under 31’s at school. Aren’t you coming? Me and almost everyone else who’s eligible is going.” He gestured to all the other Earthlings who had woken up early.

“Under 31’s? I’m 45 so I guess I’m not allowed to participate,” I said while stealing a few pumpkin seeds to chew on with my toast.

Loftus choked on a chuckle with his mouth full of porridge. After swallowing he said, “It’s for people who are under level 31, not age 31, silly.”

That made more sense, but I still wasn’t eager on participating. The entirety of my stat allocation was in Mind, so I wouldn’t do well in physical activities. I would get beaten down by anyone who had points in Body. “Even so, I’ll still pass.” I polished off the rest of my breakfast and began to leave.

“Suit yourself. I would have thought you would be interested in the huge prize: access to the school’s vault which holds countless invaluable items,” Loftus said casually.

I stopped and smiled at Loftus. “There’s a prize? Why didn’t you say so? I’ll be there even if I have to face death.”

He smiled back at me. “That’s the spirit.”

I showered and readied myself for the day. For the event I decided to wear sportswear consisting of shorts and a t-shirt. Which happened to be not so different from my usual clothes.

I stepped outside and waited for Newmill and Penrin at the designated location. I was a bit early, but I didn’t have to wait long because my teammates also came early. Both of them were wearing red shorts and white shirts.

“Hey,” I called out to them. “Did you coordinate your outfits to match? How cute.”

When she got close, Penrin lightly flicked my forehead. “Idiot, they’re our school uniforms for PE,” she said.

“Are you coming to Sports Day too, Yarm?” asked Newmill.

“You bet I am.”

Penrin grabbed both my and Newmill’s shoulders to bring us together. “We’re winning this whole thing,” she said with a look of extreme determination.

We all nodded and made our way to the school.

When we arrived, we saw that it was bustling. Many many people had come for the event. Interestingly enough, most were actually not participants. There were stalls of food and other festivities lining all zones of the school. It was almost a struggle to get past the main gates. Huge crowds of people blocked our way.

After pushing through into a clearing where we could breathe, I asked, “So what exactly do we need to do to win?”

Newmill said, “There are contests happening all over the school right now. We are allowed to participate in any of our choosing. The competitions are done in teams consisting of multiples of three.”

“That’s convenient,” I said, considering there were three of us. “I guess it makes sense since a lot of sports have teams consisting of multiples of three people. Baseball and softball have 9, hockey and volleyball have 6, and three-a-side football has three a side.”

“Yeah,” Newmill responded affirmatively. “And also badminton has three people per team, and so does tennis, and so does table tennis.”

I creased my brows. “Uhm, no. All those are 1v1 sports. Even in doubles there would only be two people per team.”

“What’s doubles?” asked Newmill. “Do you mean triples?”

“What the heck is triples?” It seemed that sports were a little different in this world. It was foolish of me to suppose they were similar in the first place. Well, it certainly was triply more convenient this way.

Newmill went on with his explanation of Sports Day. “We’re allowed to participate in anything we want, but we can’t do the same contest more than once. If we win three times, we pass the qualifying part of the day. However, if we lose more than once, then it’s over.”

I tickled my chin while listening. “So we are only allowed to fail once. Sounds tough.”

The prince said, “With each victory, we get a green stamp on our forearms. A loss gives us a red stamp. Anyone without forearms is given a stamp card.”

“I see,” I said. “And to prevent cheating, I’m willing to bet these stamps have some sort of magical signature imbued into them.” I had gained a good grasp over the event. “How do you know all this anyway?” I asked Newmill. Was he briefed on it in one of his classes?

“It’s all written here,” he said. In his hand he held three little booklets. “The person at the entrance gave me these leaflets that explain Sports Day. They even have maps to all the contests. I’m not sure why the person gave me three though, considering they’re all identical.”

I lightly flicked Newmill on the forehead and snatched a booklet from him. “He gave you three because he saw you were in a group of three, silly.”

“Ohhh,” he said with his mouth open wide. I lifted my hand to close it by raising his chin. “Don’t you think we have a good chance of passing the preliminary part?” he asked. “We either win three times, lose once and win three times, or we lose twice. That’s three possibilities and two of them mean we win. That’s a 66% chance of success.”

His reasoning made me laugh. “Have you been skipping out on your maths classes?”

“Maybe,” he admitted shyly.

It wasn’t really my place to ridicule him for his calculation when I would have come to the same conclusion only a week ago. “If we have a 50/50 chance of winning each contest, then our real probability of success is around 31%. Think of it like a coin toss. We need to get three heads, but we can’t get tails more than once. There’s a 1/8 chance we get three heads in a row since that’s 3 multiplied by 1/2.”

Newmill pressed both his index fingers against his temples and twisted while thinking. “So does that mean there’s only a 1/8 chance for us to pass?”

“No,” I said. “You also have to consider the three circumstances of a single tails occurring while we flip the coin. If we flipped tails and then three heads, that would be a probability of 1/16. Three of those would be 3/16. Adding everything together, we get 5/16 which is 31%.”

“Wow,” Newmill said with eyes staring wide at me. “You’re so smart, Yarm.”

His genuine compliment filled me with great pride. My cheeks even blushed somewhat.

“None of that is true,” Penrin said.

Upon hearing that, I worried that I went wrong somewhere in my calculations.

“The probability of us winning is 100% because we’re going to win it all!” She pumped both fists into the air. A fire burned brightly in her pupils. An unmatched expression of determination was on her face.

Evidently, Penrin was the competitive type.