Chapter 76: Side Story - Trap Move

Nanami’s monologue, POV

—————

I entered a transaction.

[B → A: 100 Liquidation Units]

Confirmed.

A murmur spread through the hall. Faction A’s leader, Fāng Xuě, immediately looked at me. Her expression was complicated, surprised at first, and then her eyes lowered in calculation before shifting to suspicion.

I sat down. Ichika stared at me for a moment.

”One hundred?”

”Yes?” I responded.

”Why?” She asked. I don’t know if she was pretending or not, but her questions were becoming quite forced to me.

”Because it’s meaningless.” I responded.

Ichika blinked. “What?”

”That’s just the point.” I folded my hands.

”A transaction of one hundred is large enough to establish cooperation, but small enough that nobody benefits significantly from predicting it.” Reina nodded slowly, interpreting my action to Ichika.

”And it establishes a pattern,” Ichika debated.

”I know, but that’s only if we repeat it,” I inserted.

Masayuki smiled faintly. “So you want the first move to be a decoy.” He seemed to be thinking of something quite different from mine. I don’t like his way of thinking or methods, but to pass this test we will need as much help as we can get.

”No.” I looked at the screen. “I want the first move to be exactly what it appears to be.”

Masayuki’s smile disappeared, pretty sure he hated my idea. Right from birth, he had always had a habit of regarding my ideas as mid or not exciting to follow.

Kinko remained constant; he didn’t change in his demeanor. “That’s very Nanami.”

Across the hall, Fāng Xuě was still watching me.

Then Faction A’s transaction appeared on the monitor screen.

[A → C: 400 Liquidation Units]

The entire hall froze, and my eyes widened.

Ichika whispered immediately upon seeing the notification. “What?”

Reina’s coffee stopped halfway to her mouth. This has to be the very first time I have seen Reina shocked about something.

Masayuki sat forward, while Kinko still remained neutral.

Four hundred? That was enormous. It was nearly half of Faction A’s starting capital. And it was going to C?

My mind immediately began calculating the possibilities.

Why?

A genuine alliance? A trap? A prediction bait? A forced transfer?

Could A afford the Stability hit? Was C going to return something? Was the transfer itself being designed to become predictable?

I looked at Fāng Xuě. The girl looked just as surprised, but it would seem it wasn’t at the transaction, but rather at the reaction we had to it.

She wants us to think it’s important.

But was it? Or was that itself the trick?

The interface of the monitor in front of the class updated.

Faction C’s submission appeared.

[C → B: 350 Liquidation Units.]

The room exploded.

”WHAT?!” Someone from my group shouted.

”Why B?”

”They’re transferring to B?”

”Did they form an alliance?”

I stared at the number. Three hundred and fifty, the exact opposite of what I had expected. My previous information had suggested C would avoid strengthening B. Yet now C was voluntarily transferring 350 units.

I immediately checked the protocol.

No conditions, no pending clauses; the transaction was legitimate.

Her faction would receive 350 units. Put in mind that no one had received their units yet, but only after the first interval was over. It was practically a test run so we can see the mechanics. I hate this school for a lot of reasons I can’t explain, but it sort of reminds me of home.

That meant B would rise from 1,000 to 1,350 minus the 100 sent, leaving us at 1,250 by the end of this interval. But A would fall to 600 plus the 100 we had just sent—B was at 700.

C would fall to 650 plus the 400 from A, making it 1,050.

The balance of power had changed instantly.

I looked at both Ginton and Fāng Xuě. Are they cooperating?

Ginton was stoic, but a faint smile escaped his lips.

Then I understood.

”Prediction.” Masayuki’s voice was barely audible.

No. That wasn’t enough.

If this were simply a prediction trap, C had just given B too much capital. They had made us stronger while simultaneously making us more attractive to future predictions.

Why would they do that?

Unless making B stronger was itself the point.

I nodded.

”Exactly.” He seemed to have noticed, but I didn’t push forward; part of me didn’t want to rely on him.

The interface flashed.

PREDICTION WINDOW

[Submit predictions regarding future confirmed transactions.]

My eyes widened a bit. A beep notification appeared on my phone, separate from the test app we were just using. It was from the ‘Karafuguru High’ app.

Was this for security purposes? To prevent hacking?

I clicked on the link sent to me. It redirected me to a page where we were to place our predictions. I was given a form to fill that required my SOAAD metric number and ID code, immediately sending my information into the system, recognizing me as a Faction leader. I was then immediately given thirty minutes to do so as the countdown started immediately.

C had just transferred 350 to B.

That meant C had lost 350.

Why?

If someone predicted that C would transfer another amount to B, C would be punished. But perhaps that was precisely why C had done it. Ginton had made the first move aggressively by making himself difficult to predict.

But that wasn’t all; he had also given B a large capital increase.

That meant B now had a greater potential to make transfers, which meant B had become a more attractive target for predictions.

C had just increased the number of ways our faction could be attacked.

And A had transferred 400 to C. Perhaps A and C were cooperating.

Or they weren’t.

Perhaps…

I looked at the numbers.

Then at Ginton and Fāng Xuě, something didn’t fit.

———

“Leadership, it turns out, is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge. Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.”