Fujiwara brightly pulled a game off the display shelf.
"This game is Clue! And not just any version—it’s the limited-edition Harry Potter version!"
"Hah, that one was really hard to get..."
Makiwara, looking pleased with herself. So board games had limited editions too. I had no idea.
The board game TG Club had brought out was the Harry Potter version of Clue.
It was a deduction board game where you had to figure out the culprit, the crime scene, and the murder weapon in a murder that took place in the Harry Potter universe.
After the rules explanation ended, Fujiwara put the three solution cards into the sealed envelope, shuffled the rest of the deck, and dealt the cards out fairly.
The cards I got were four in total: character card Dumbledore, murder weapons mandrake and sleeping potion, and the Great Hall as a location.
My token was Ron Weasley.
Fujiwara was Hermione.
Makiwara was Snape.
And Gigako-senpai was Malfoy.
If I could’ve chosen, I would’ve picked Harry Potter, the protagonist, but apparently that card had disappeared somewhere...
Fujiwara went first. She rolled two dice, moved into Grimmauld Place, and immediately started making deductions.
"Hotaron-kun killed someone with a mandrake in Grimmauld Place!"
"Don’t randomly rename me. I didn’t kill anyone."
Having been summoned to Grimmauld Place, I showed Fujiwara the mandrake card and only Fujiwara.
She hummed a tune as she marked it down on her sheet.
"Mm-hmm~ Good start~"
From Makiwara to Gigako, I quietly watched the way everyone was deducing things. I was starting to get the rough idea of the game.
For now, the early phase was all reconnaissance. Gather as much information as possible.
"Snape probably killed someone in the Hogwarts infirmary with a Portkey spell."
"Feels like Hermione killed someone in the library with an Impedimenta spell."
I gathered information as much as possible from things I didn’t have.
After that, I gradually pieced together the clues by deducing one thing I had and one thing I didn’t.
By the time the game had reached the middle, I had eliminated quite a few possibilities through process of elimination and was able to get to the final stage fairly quickly.
"The culprit is definitely Malfoy. The location is probably the dormitory bedroom. Then the murder weapon is..."
Heh.
I knew it. I knew the answer.
Seeing the smile I’d made without realizing it, the TG Club members’ expressions changed all at once.
"S-Suzuki-kun, don’t tell me...?"
"Yeah, I think I’ve got it."
"No way! Already!?"
Gigako-senpai rolled the dice as if she were trying to force something out, but she still couldn’t reach Dumbledore’s office, where the final deduction could be made.
At last it was my turn. I rolled the two dice. Twelve. Game over.
After moving my Ron Weasley token to Dumbledore’s office and taking the sealed envelope in hand, I declared the answer.
"Malfoy killed him in the dormitory bedroom with a magic broom."
"Ghk...!"
"That seems right..."
Sighs burst out from all around me.
Who told you to bring a deduction game?
I smugly pulled the solution cards out of the sealed envelope one by one.
"Malfoy, in the dormitory bedroom—"
Good, perfect so far. Now if the weapon is right, then...
"Harry Potter and... huh?"
Why are you here, Harry?
With someone who absolutely should not have been there suddenly showing up, I was left dumbfounded, while the girls around me erupted into chaos.
"Oh my, in the bedroom, with two men...!?"
"Goodness... what on earth did they do...!!"
"Eek! I didn’t hear anything! I really didn’t!"
The two senpai were openly delighted, while Fujiwara was covering her eyes and saying she hadn’t heard anything at all.
At this point, my brain was starting to go a little fuzzy.
No, seriously, why was Harry Potter on a weapon card...?
"...I’m sorry! I shuffled them wrong!"
It turned out that because of Fujiwara’s mistake, the magic broom card I’d deduced had been left out, and the Harry card had ended up in the sealed envelope.
"If it weren’t for that one, you would’ve had it right..."
"You’re pretty good at Clue too, clerk-kun..."
It seemed like my victory was being recognized, but what was this awful feeling?
I wanted to quit everything and go home now...
"That’s enough now, right? Fujiwara, let’s go to the student council room."
"I-I guess so?"
Since Fujiwara had been the one responsible for the Malfoy x Harry Potter disaster, she looked ready to come along obediently, but the other club members weren’t about to let that happen.
"No way! Our ordeal has three stages total! There’s still one final stage left!"
If I resisted here for no reason, wouldn’t that just make us stay even longer...?
"...Fine. What is it this time?"
"A blood-soaked battle royale board game!"
"...?"
Just hearing that didn’t let me imagine it at all. Did something like that even exist?
"The next game venue is beyond Platform 9 and 3/4! All right, let’s go!"
The club president suddenly ran to the curtained window, then hurled herself straight through it and disappeared.
…!?!
We were on the fourth floor, weren’t we?
Then, right after her, Gigako and Fujiwara also started running as if they were about to throw themselves out the window.
"Fujiwara...! Wait a sec... huh?"
Something was off. It felt strangely different from an ordinary window. It was still broad daylight, but that place was pitch-black.
When I went closer to check,
it was a secret space...?
Looking inside, there was a soft mat laid out just beyond the fake window so it would be fine to jump through, and four PCs lined up in a row. The walls were fully soundproofed too.
No, weren’t you guys the Table Game Club?
"...You got permission for this?"
"Hehe, of course not."
So it wasn’t even officially approved...?
I didn’t plan to complain since they’d taken the risk to make it themselves, but this was very much the kind of thing TG Club would do.
"Be proud of it. You’re the first outsider to make it this far after passing TG Club’s ordeals and getting in here.
Not proud at all.
Fujiwara coughed a few times, then pointed at the PCs and said,
"Ahem, this is the real final test! This time’s game is PC game Battlegrounding!"
"Since when did the definition of board game change...?"
Fujiwara puffed out her cheeks in protest at my words.
"Suzuki-kun! If you stay trapped in old-fashioned thinking like that, you’ll never become the kind of talent needed in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution!"
What was she even talking about now?
Just how far do you have to break free of convention to become that kind of talent?
"If you define PCs broadly, they’re a kind of board! Saying only analog games played on a table count as board games is an outdated prejudice!"
She dressed it up in some difficult-sounding language, but it still wasn’t a board game, was it...?
Whatever. I’d just have to finish this quickly and take her back.
After sitting down in front of the last PC at the end, Fujiwara stood close beside me and started setting things up.
It was oddly close...
Fujiwara, without seeming to realize it, was pressed right up against me. Her pink hair swayed right in front of my eyes.
And because she smelled like good shampoo too, it was weirdly hard not to notice.
"Suzuki-kun, have you ever played an FPS before?"
"...No. I’ve only played FIFA with my little brother, really."
Come to think of it, when I played FIFA with my little brother, he always used Real Madrid and went all-in on a one-striker tactic centered on his dad card.
I remember beating him very easily. Well, that was about the level of gaming for me.
"Then I’ll teach you the basics! WASD are the movement keys for forward, back, left, and right. Reload is R, and firing is left-click on the mouse..."
Fujiwara gave me a quick rundown of the controls. After I practiced moving around a bit in the training area and got the keys down, the game started as a four-person squad party.
A plane flying through the sky.
"Kozue-senpai! Where are we dropping?"
"This time, I’m giving that arrogant challenger a Spartan education! I’m dropping us at the school, so survive on your own!"
"Huh!? There?"
Fujiwara grimaced. Apparently, the school was a pretty rough place in this game.
That sounded familiar. It was a pretty rough place for me in real life too.
"All right, everyone jump!"
At Gigako-senpai’s words, everyone started jumping out of the plane, and I jumped too, but
there was a message in front of me.
"Parachute...?"
"Ah, Suzuki-kun. If you press that before—!"
I pressed the parachute button without thinking. By the time Fujiwara tried to stop me, it was already too late.
Whoosh...
My body, which had been descending at a furious speed, was now hanging from a parachute and dropping at the speed of a turtle.
The ground was still a long way off, so at this rate, when was I ever going to arrive...?
"That happens the first time! We’ll cover for you, so take your time!"
"...Right."
She was kind, at least.
And when she stayed quiet, she was actually pretty cute too.
While I was still falling through the sky, the three who had landed at the school began the battle.
Bang bang
"There are four people who dropped on the roof besides us!"
"Got it!"
"Understood!"
After reporting the situation on the roof, the three went straight into combat and quickly achieved some results.
"One down! Two down!"
"I got one on the side too!"
"I got one too. Looks like the roof is clear now?"
Having conquered the roof, the three moved down to the lower floors with that momentum.
In the hallways and crowded classrooms, they split up and started looting items.
"Ah, I found a Kar98! The next classroom is... eek!"
Bang! Bang! Ratatat!
"Chika! What happened?!"
"There’s an enemy in the opposite hallway! I managed to get into a classroom for now, but be careful—!"
"Got it, I’ll take them on!"
Bang!
Gigako boldly stepped out into the hallway and was instantly knocked down by a single headshot.
She barely managed to crawl into the classroom, dragging herself along the floor.
While Fujiwara and Makiwara were exchanging fire with the enemy to cover Gigako, they sensed something was off.
"One of the enemies over there has insane aim, doesn’t he?"
"I stepped out for a second and my helmet was completely destroyed. Eek..."
One of the opponents was absurdly skilled! Whether it was hacks or pure talent, the one certain thing was that they were being cornered.
The two thought for a moment, then decided to retreat.
"On three, run. One, two, three—!"
Ratatat—!
"Eek!"
"This can’t be real...!"
Under the enemy’s terrifying aim, the two were shot down while trying to run.
Luckily, they fell after turning the corner of the hallway, so they weren’t immediately finished off, but if the enemies chased them this far, it was only a matter of time.
The enemy squad was charging in fiercely to secure the kills, and the three had already resigned themselves to death.
"...Yeah, school really isn’t easy."
"Spartan education, my ass. We’re the ones getting educated."
"Should we move on to the next round quickly...? Huh?"
Bang!
Just as the enemy squad passed the stairs right before the corner, a pistol shot rang out and one of the charging enemies suddenly collapsed.
Then came a series of gunshots.
Bang! Ratatat! Bang! Ratatat!
Gunfire echoed fiercely,
and the only one standing on both feet in that space was a single person.
"How am I supposed to save this...?"
It was Hotaro, who had been floating in the sky all this time at a snail’s pace.
In his hand, he held only a single pistol.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register