Chapter 78: Side Story - Asymmetric Equilibrium

Fāng Xuě’s monologue, POV

———–

The digital hum of the classroom monitor settled into a low, metallic drone, casting a harsh, blue light over the rigid rows of desks.

On the massive board at the front of the hall, the final tallies for Interval one remained locked:

Faction A: 700 Liquidation Units, Faction B: 1,250 Liquidation Units, and Faction C: 1,050 Liquidation Units.

Then, beneath the transaction logs, a new line of text flickered to life, accompanied by a sharp, rhythmic digital chime.

The first interval had ended, and the prediction points shown were: Faction A: 50 Prediction Points (1 Prediction Remaining), Faction B: 150 Prediction Points (3 Predictions Remaining), and lastly Faction C: 0 Prediction Points (0 Predictions Remaining).

A collective murmur rippled through the hall. Across the room, students in Faction C began shifting uncomfortably in their seats, murmuring among themselves as they stared at the stark, brutal ‘0’ next to Ginton’s faction.

In our section, Ichika let out a small breath of surprise, leaning back against her chair. “Wait… C has zero points left? Did they really waste all three of their predictions on the first round?”

”They didn’t just waste them,” Reina murmured, her eyes narrowing as she analyzed the display. “They gambled everything on a single predictive model—and missed completely. If our reading of the rules is right, spending all 150 points on failed guesses means their predictive offense is entirely dead for the foreseeable future.”

A five minute countdown started immediately on the monitor, signaling the start of the second interval.

I kept my eyes fixed on the board, my mind quietly processing the shift. Ginton had overcommitted. In his haste to trap us into a predictable loop, he had burned his entire reserve of prediction points right out of the gate.

But while Faction B was busy whispering and evaluating their position, a few rows over in Faction A—my section—we were dealing with a very different kind of panic.

Several students around me were visibly sweating, their voices rising in anxious whispers.

”We’re down to 700 units!” one of them hissed, gripping the edge of their desk. “Faction B is sitting pretty at 1,250, and C is right above us at 1,050. If we lose another round like that, our capital will collapse entirely! Fāng Xuě, we need to do something—retaliate, demand a transfer, anything!”

”Keep your voices down,” a second student pleaded, running a hand through their hair. “We only have fifty prediction points left. One wrong guess and we’re blind. How are we supposed to survive the next interval?”

The anxiety was palpable, a heavy, suffocating weight pressing down on Faction A’s members. They were human, after all—stressed, terrified of academic failure, and staring at a point deficit that felt like a localized disaster.

At the center of it all, I, Fāng Xuě, sat completely still.

I didn’t snap at them or try offering empty, hollow reassurances that everything would be fine. Instead, I slowly folded my hands over my tablet, letting the frantic noise of my classmates wash over me for a few seconds before I spoke. My voice wasn’t loud, but it carried an absolute, grounded calm that slowly cut through the panic.

”Panic won’t recover a single unit,” I said, turning my head slightly to look at the panicking student beside me. My dark eyes were steady, devoid of the nervous twitching plaguing the rest of my group. “Look at the board. Look past the raw numbers.”

The student blinked, swallowing hard. “What… what are you talking about? We’re losing!”

”We’re only losing if we play the game they want us to play,” I replied quietly, my analytical mind already stripping away the emotional noise.

I normally hated losing; this wasn’t what I wanted, but it is what it is.

In the silence that followed, my internal framework locked into place, systematically dissecting the core mechanics of the test.

The true victory condition was as follows:

Final Evaluation = Capital + Prediction Score + Stability Modifier.

So in other words, capital was not the absolute win condition. Faction A could easily win with less capital if their stability and prediction score outpaced the others. Raw wealth was a trap for the impatient.

The next step was simple, actually: the weaponization of predictions. Each prediction cost 50 points. A wrong prediction could completely bankrupt a faction’s predictive power—as Faction C had just painfully demonstrated.

With only 50 points left, Faction A had to be surgical. The strategy moving forward was clear: bait Faction B into predicting patterns, then deliberately break those patterns at the last second.

Then came the stranglehold of stability. Stability punished two specific things: excessive capital loss and excessive behavioral predictability.

For one, having already taken a heavy 400-unit hit in the first interval, Faction A would not be able to afford any more large, erratic losses. We would have to maintain a low-volatility profile while actively avoiding obvious, repeating rhythms.

Which brought the other step into play next: the boundaries of the Lex Veritas Protocol.

The protocol prevented outright lies, but it did not prevent deception. Omissions, conditional statements, and technically true phrasing were entirely legal. For instance, stating “Faction A will not transfer 400 units to C” remained entirely truthful if they transferred 399 instead. Saying “Faction A has not decided” was valid even if they decided two seconds later.

Still, after spending my time analyzing the opponents, it was becoming clear to me:

B’s weakness: Nanami over-analyzed everything and deeply feared being modeled. She would inevitably try to be unpredictable—which, in itself, could easily curdle into a predictable psychological pattern. She was likely to make small, cautious transfers and freeze up on predictions when uncertainty peaked.

As for C’s weakness: Ginton was dangerously manipulative, but Faction C had just torched all 150 prediction points on three failed guesses. They had low capital, zero prediction power, and were utterly vulnerable to being squeezed by Faction B. C desperately needed an ally to survive, and I intended to exploit that precise desperation.

Our sole advantage remained, even though some of my members couldn’t see it.

That initial 400-unit transfer to C during the opening minutes—which everyone in the room had mourned as a catastrophic loss—wasn’t a mistake. It could be reframed as a calculated coalition signal.

I could demand strict reciprocity from Ginton, leveraging his current weakness. Moreover, out of all three factions, Faction A now had the absolute least to lose by pivoting entirely into a low-capital, high-stability defensive posture.

I exhaled slowly, watching the four minutes remaining on the timer displayed downward on the main monitor.

My classmates had stopped panicking, calmed after doing their own analysis and deductions of the situation and aim. They weren’t broken yet; they were just getting started.

I still couldn’t tell if they truly got it though, but whatever.

Across the room, Nanami watched my shoulders relax, sensing the sudden shift in atmosphere across the aisle. She must have noticed something had changed in my posture.

The board ticked down. Interval two was approaching, and the real psychological warfare was about to begin.

——–

“There is always a risk in a gamble”