Future Diary Survival Game

Chapter 19: Note Test - 2

In the end, the situation had turned out like this.

Among these people, the only one trying to read as many books as possible was Matets.

Naturally, the others didn’t even touch the books.

Instead, whenever Matets read a book, Armelia Kerr Dneroum would snatch it from him.

She would finish it in a minute and then hand it around to everyone.

“Everyone, read quickly. If possible, form groups of three or four and read at once. We have to save time.”

“Yes, yess!”

“Force it into your heads with everything you’ve got. Lives are at stake.”

Everyone lunged at the books with faces drained of color.

With nearly two hundred people crowding a single book, bottlenecks were inevitable.

“Damn it, why aren’t you reading faster?”

“Hey. Don’t flip ahead. I haven’t finished yet.”

“Move! Or I’ll kill you before I do.”

As long as I didn’t know how many more books Matets would read, that kind of thing was unavoidable.

I sighed and said to Aina Noel.

“Organize them, please.”

“Why are you worrying about other people’s business?”

“We have nothing else to do anyway.”

“No, we do. Of course we do.”

She continued with a sullen face.

“I have to read those books too. You’re in the same boat, aren’t you?”

“What? Ah, sorry. I hadn’t explained this yet.”

“What?”

Instead of answering, I grabbed the Diary Book with my hand.

Then I used the ‘secret conversation’ function to speak to Armelia and Aina at the same time.

[Aina. And Your Highness. Can you hear me?]

[Hmm. As always, I hear you well.]

[…What’s this now.]

Aina flinched slightly, but instantly controlled her expression.

She was conscious of Magireta, who clung to the ceiling like a cicada and watched.

Lucky she was quick on the uptake.

Of course, Magireta seemed completely unaware of the Diary Book’s existence.

[I told you I was a mage.]

[That lie turned out to be true?]

[Don’t you remember making the map disappear in the Second Quest?]

[I thought that was some sleight of hand or the like. I didn’t expect you to be able to speak into people’s minds like this.]

Aina breathed heavily.

[Ah, now I see. So you secretly had conversations with the Princess in the Second Quest too?]

[Yes. Now that we’re on the same team, I invited you as well.]

[What a perfect metaphor.]

Just then, Armelia said brightly.

[Mason. If this magic works, couldn’t it save everyone here?]

[Huh?]

[I’ll memorize everything Matets reads on behalf of everyone. And if you use your magic to tell others the correct answers… ah, would that be cheating?]

[No. The idea itself is correct. Magireta knows nothing about my magic.]

I answered that, then—feeling oddly nervous—I asked the Diary Book.

‘Right? Diary Book?’

[Probably yes.]

‘What an uncertain answer.’

[I think it will probably be fine. I’d stake Mason’s life on it.]

‘Staking my life makes it meaningless.’

Anyway, I could only trust that it was okay.

That wasn’t the problem, though.

I told Armelia.

[My magic can only be used on people I personally saved once.]

[What? Then—]

[Yes. As of now, I can only have secret conversations with Princess and Aina. Unfortunately, there’s no way to save the others.]

Armelia bit her lip.

Aina carefully opened her mouth.

[So what you’re saying is…?]

[Right. With this undetectable cheating, the Princess will tell us the answers. Then you won’t need to look at a single printed character.]

[But how do I know she’ll help me?]

She glanced at Armelia, perhaps remembering their earlier argument.

Armelia hurriedly said.

“What are you talking about. Of course I’ll tell you all the answers.”

“But I tried to kill you at first.”

“But you also saved me. As I’ve said before, if it weren’t for you I’d have been crocodile food.”

“Earlier I also… insulted that Cecil person or whatever.”

“Yes. Apologize for that, and I’ll apologize for mentioning the Noel family. But that has nothing to do with helping you.”

Aina looked somewhat surprised, then smiled faintly.

I said,

“Since Magireta is watching, we’ll need to pretend to skim the books later. It would look suspicious to pass the exam without having read a single volume.”

“Right.”

“But it doesn’t need to look like we’re desperate to read right now. So please manage the order. They’ll crush each other to death before Magireta kills them otherwise.”

Aina didn’t answer and turned toward the chaos.

Then she shouted loudly.

“Everybody, line up!”

“Eek.”

A jolt.

A terrifying presence.

Even though it wasn’t directed at me, I felt my spine chill.

“From now on, come forward when I call your name. Three people read a book in order. No cutting, or I won’t forgive you.”

“Y-yes, yes.”

“Each team must finish within two hours. If time runs out, you pass the book to the next team.”

“Understood!”

With that, a semblance of order began to take shape.

I watched Matets, who was reading at the very front.

He was so absorbed in reading he didn’t notice my gaze.

Tap, tap.

He tapped the page with his finger as he read.

Was that a memorization method he’d developed himself?

‘He really is smart.’

But he was selfish.

Of course, being selfish wasn’t inherently wrong.

At first I hadn’t cared what happened to the others either.

‘But—’

I couldn’t be included among those “others.”

If not for Armelia and the Diary Book’s secret conversations, I would have been trapped by Matets’s method and probably killed.

So….

‘I will make sure you fail. In this quest.’

Two days passed.

Although he wasn’t at an inhuman level like Armelia, Matets was an astonishingly fast reader.

He could finish a book in about thirty minutes.

Considering Armelia did one per minute, he was thirty times slower, but still a speed no ordinary person could match.

Aina whispered.

“Is that guy really memorizing everything as he reads? Isn’t he just skimming with his eyes?”

“He’d risked his life, so he wouldn’t do that. He kept tapping the pages with his finger while reading. He must be using that memorization method he said he developed.”

“Hoo. A riot is going to break out soon. Look over there.”

Aina turned her body.

About two hundred people were clustered in groups, noses buried in books.

On average, their book-clearing speed was one volume every two hours.

However, if one asked how much of it they had actually memorized, I could only remain skeptical.

The books that had already passed through Matets’s and Armelia Kerr Dneroum’s hands were piled up like mountains.

Even though they were divided into groups and rotating while reading, that much still remained.

I shook my head.

“Riot in itself is an ‘act of preventing reading.’ Magireta wouldn’t allow that.”

“Yeah. If you think about it rationally, that’s true.”

“…….”

“But people whose lives hang in the balance tend to lose their reason very easily.”

No sooner had Aina Noel finished speaking.

“Uwaaa! Damn it!”

Suddenly someone sprang to his feet.

He strode toward Matets.

With bloodshot eyes, he opened his mouth.

“Hey. You there!”

“What is it. Don’t be noisy.”

“Put that book down at once. And don’t read another volume until the exam starts!”

“Hoho. By what right do you give that order? Are you going to break Rule 3? Preventing people from reading is elimination.”

“Damn it. At this rate we’ll all fail the exam anyway!”

He whirled around.

Then he shouted to the roughly two hundred people murmuring and looking our way.

“Are you all just waiting to die like that? You should try doing something!”

“I-I’d like to, but what can I do?”

“We don’t know how broadly ‘preventing reading’ applies. Let’s snap that bastard’s arms and legs. He could still read even then.”

“Oh, ooooh.”

“If he stubbornly keeps insisting through the pain of shattered joints, let him try. Isn’t that right?”

No, it wasn’t.

On the surface, the man’s words sounded right.

Even with broken limbs, one could still read.

Unless the eyes were gouged out, there was basically no reason one couldn’t read a book.

‘But.’

At that moment Armelia stepped forward.

“Stop. That’s too dangerous.”

“P-Princess?”

“There’s no way someone could read in the agony of broken limbs. Just because the eyes weren’t taken out and someone could physically read a book, does that mean it truly doesn’t violate the rule?”

“…….”

“It’s Magireta who judges that. Your idea is tantamount to placing your lives on Magireta’s decision.”

Armelia looked up and glared at the ceiling as she shouted.

“Magireta. Give a clear answer right here. Tell us whether their attempt would violate the rule or not.”

“Well.”

“Don’t answer so ambiguously. If you don’t tell us clearly……”

“No. I really don’t know. Tell them to try it once. I’ll judge after seeing the results.”

I took those words to mean this.

—Go on, go on. Let there be blood before the exam starts.

She was expecting it. She wanted it.

If one watched closely the meaning of that smile would be obvious, but it was impossible for the two hundred people who were pumped full of excitement.

“There’s a possibility, then……”

Someone among the participants muttered.

That became the fuse, and they began to approach Matets with vicious glints in their eyes.

Aina whispered.

“We’re all dead. Those guys.”

“Hmm.”

“Honestly, they’re all competitors so I wouldn’t mourn them much… but you already decided to save as many of those people as possible, right? Like you said before.”

“Yes. Besides, I don’t like the way that bastard Matets’s face was so smug.”

“I agree with that.”

Armelia spoke in an anxious voice.

“Isn’t there some way?”

For some reason her voice made something click in my head.

A flash of light darted through my suddenly rapidly turning thoughts.

“There is.”

“What?”

“Damn. I should have thought of this sooner.”

Bang.

I jumped onto the table.

Then I shouted with all my might.

“Everyone, stop!”

“W-what the—”

“You again.”

“Don’t stop me. This is the only way we can survive.”

I turned my last sentence into an answer.

“No. There’s one more way. At least something more certain than beating the hell out of Matets.”

“What did you say?”

Everyone’s movement froze.

Matets frowned and glared at me.

“Come to think of it, I heard a strange story from low-ranking guys a while back. Some swindler who had three gold coins and two women used my name to buy his life or something.”

“Yes. That was me.”

“Hearing that, I thought your trick was clever. But this situation won’t be solved by tricks.”

“Really?”

I grinned and began a speech to the assembled crowd.

No—precisely.

I started to incite them.

“There is another way to stop Matets’s reading.”

“W-what on earth is that?”

“Each of you two hundred will scatter and read one book apiece from this sixth floor.”

At those words Armelia’s face brightened first.

She understood my meaning.

Then Aina, and then the expressions of the two hundred people changed.

Only Matets’s face crumpled.

He shouted loudly.

“What are you trying to do? That would instantly expand the exam scope by two hundred volumes!”

“True.”

“Do you think these people will follow that? If each reads a different book, the probability that any one of them will know what appears on the test becomes one in two hundred!”

“We can pass around the two hundred books among ourselves, excluding you.”

Grit.

Matets ground his teeth.

I continued.

“We’ll preassign which shelf and which book number each of you will read, and share the location and title of the books you read with each other. Just not you.”

“Ugh. That would violate the rule about preventing others from reading.”

“Why? How are we preventing anyone from reading? If they want to read, they can read as much as they like.”

My idea was essentially a self-sacrifice attack.

But the two hundred people were so cornered they might as well commit suicide.

A cornered rat bites even a cat.

Matets seemed to read the room; his face paled.

I turned my gaze to the others.

“You no longer need to receive and read the books Matets has gone through. Each of you take one book, remember its location and title, and share it.”

“Ooooh.”

“Shall we start right away? Let that bastard play alone.”

“W-wait!”

In the end Matets stepped forward.

He wore a servile smile on his lips as he said,

“All right. I lost.”

“…….”

“I’ll stop reading now. So don’t ostracize me.”