Classroom of the Elite: Standing Firm in Class A — Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Warm-up Game

Soon, Kaedehara Tetsu found his target within the digital catalog of the System Store.

[Skill: International Chess Master Level]

[Effect: Grants the Host the chess strength, tactical reserves, and psychological composure of a world-class International Chess Master.]

[Price: 80 points.]

The price was entirely reasonable. Yet, as his gaze drifted lower down the interface, another option caught his eye—one boasting an absolutely absurd cost-performance ratio.

[Skill: All-Game Master]

[Effect: Grants the Host the Master Level in all board games (including but not limited to International Chess, Go, Shogi, etc.).]

[Price: 250 points.]

Two hundred and fifty points for top-tier proficiency across every conceivable board game on the planet. It was practically a steal. Securing it now would not only guarantee his victory today but also permanently eliminate any future threats involving tabletop strategy.

However, a minor complication arose. A quick glance at his current balance revealed a total of exactly 223 points.

An amusing paradox formed in his mind. He needed to win the impending match to harvest points, but he needed points to purchase the skill required to win the match, and he needed that skill to secure the victory. It was a perfect, endless cycle of prerequisites.

There was only one solution. He had to extract the necessary startup capital from Sakayanagi Arisu before they ever sat down at the chessboard.

Tetsu’s expression remained perfectly composed, his lips curved in that familiar, relaxed smile. He met Sakayanagi’s expectant gaze, deliberately withholding his immediate acceptance of her challenge.

The task issued by the System contained a glaring loophole. The objective merely mandated that he ‘win against Sakayanagi Arisu.’ It never specified the medium, the rules, or the scale of the competition.

His mind worked rapidly, weaving the threads of a new trap.

“However, before we play chess formally, Sakayanagi-san,” Tetsu began, his voice smooth and conversational, “are you interested in playing a simple logical mini-game first? Just to warm up our minds.”

Sakayanagi leaned forward slightly, her interest clearly piqued. “Do tell.”

Without breaking eye contact, Tetsu reached over to a nearby table, casually borrowing a white pawn and a black pawn from a senior student’s abandoned set. He held the smooth resin pieces up for her to see, then brought his hands behind his back.

“The premise is very simple,” he explained, bringing both closed fists forward to present them to her. “I have one white piece and one black piece. Behind my back, I will randomly swap their positions—or choose not to swap them at all. Then, you simply need to guess which hand holds the white piece. Guess correctly, and you win. Guess incorrectly, and the victory is mine.”

The rules sounded almost insultingly elementary. Childish, even.

Yet, Sakayanagi showed no hint of contempt. Her lilac eyes sharpened with analytical focus. “And the number of rounds?”

“Deciding the winner in a single round relies far too much on blind luck,” Tetsu replied, his smile widening a fraction. “We will play ten rounds. Whoever accumulates the most correct guesses by the end claims the win. How does that sound?”

Sakayanagi stared deeply into his eyes, searching for the hidden catch, the subtle tell that would betray his intentions. She remained silent for several long seconds, letting the ambient noise of the room fade into the background.

“Very interesting,” she finally murmured. “I accept.”

To her, the game was merely a stripped-down contest of probability and psychological warfare. She possessed absolute confidence that she would not falter in either domain.

“In that case, let the game begin.”

Tetsu moved his hands behind his back. A faint, sharp clink of resin against resin echoed briefly before he extended both closed fists toward her once more. His face was a mask of placid calm, his breathing steady, offering absolutely zero readable data.

Sakayanagi carefully scanned the micro-expressions around his eyes and the subtle tension in his forearms. Finding nothing of value, she relied on a calculated baseline and chose the left hand.

Tetsu opened his fingers. A black pawn rested in his palm.

“Round one. I win,” he said softly.

Round two. Sakayanagi chose the right hand. Black piece.

Round three. Left hand. White piece.

She took back a point. The rhythm established itself quickly. By the end of the first five rounds, Sakayanagi had guessed correctly three times and incorrectly twice, securing a slight lead.

Yet, a delicate frown marred her usually pristine features.

She realized with mounting suspicion that Tetsu’s physical execution was flawless. There were no tells. No muscular twitches, no shifting gaze, no subconscious patterns. Her choices felt entirely unguided, reduced to a pure fifty-percent coin toss. The current score was statistically mundane, completely within expected parameters.

Round six. Right hand. Black piece.

Round seven. Left hand. Black piece.

Round eight. Right hand. White piece.

Round nine. Left hand. Black piece.

The score shifted. After nine rounds, Sakayanagi had guessed correctly four times and incorrectly five times. She was trailing by a single point.

The unease in her chest deepened. Logically, in a purely probabilistic exercise, the win rates should hover near equilibrium. But her instincts screamed that she was missing a critical variable.

The final round. The decider.

Tetsu brought his hands behind his back one last time. The hidden movement lasted just a fraction of a second longer than the previous iterations.

When he presented his fists again, Sakayanagi’s gaze swept over his knuckles, analyzing the slight difference in how tightly his fingers curled. She fell into a heavy silence, her mind racing through the data of the previous nine rounds, desperately hunting for a habitual pattern in his randomization.

Nothing. His execution was a void.

Relying on a final, razor-thin thread of intuition, she pointed to his right hand.

“Are you entirely sure, Sakayanagi-san?”

“I am sure,” she stated, her tone resolute and unyielding.

Tetsu slowly uncurled his right fingers. Lying quietly against his skin was the dark, polished shape of a pawn.

Black.

Four to six. Sakayanagi had lost.

She did not speak immediately. Her eyes remained locked on the black piece for a long moment before slowly rising to meet Tetsu’s gaze. The emotion swirling in her lilac irises was complex—a mixture of surprise, calculation, and dawning realization.

“I see. I have indeed lost,” she admitted, her voice perfectly level. “You exploited a loophole in the rules.”

Tetsu let out a low laugh, the sound rich with the satisfaction of a perfectly sprung trap. “As expected of Sakayanagi-san. You caught on incredibly fast. The rule I stated was exactly this: ‘You simply need to guess which hand holds the white piece.’ I never once stipulated that every time my hands returned from behind my back, they had to be holding one piece each, did I?”

He raised his left hand, the one she hadn’t chosen, and opened his tightly clenched fist.

The palm was completely empty.

The white piece had never been in his left hand to begin with. It was securely tucked away inside the cuff of his right sleeve.

The implication struck immediately. In the final round—and highly likely in the earlier rounds where she had lost—the movement behind his back wasn’t a swap at all. He had simply palmed both pieces into one hand, or hidden one entirely, leaving the other fist empty.

By doing so, no matter which hand Sakayanagi selected, he could simply reveal the empty palm and declare her guess incorrect. After all, she was tasked with finding the hand holding the white piece; an empty hand naturally held nothing. It was a guaranteed victory condition. He only needed to deploy this sleight of hand in two or three crucial rounds to permanently skew the mathematics in his favor.

The rules only demanded she find the white piece. They never promised the white piece would actually be available to find.

It was a linguistic trap. A masterfully concealed logical blind spot.

A beat of silence passed between them. Then, Sakayanagi suddenly let out a soft, airy laugh.

“Fufu…”

There was no anger in the sound. Instead, her eyes practically sparkled with genuine admiration for the sheer audacity of his deception. She wasn’t the least bit annoyed by the underhanded nature of the trick; rather, she found herself deeply appreciating his ruthless, unscrupulous pragmatism.

[Ding! Detected that the Host has defeated the key figure Sakayanagi Arisu in a contest of wits. Reward granted: 500 points.]

The mechanical chime echoed in his mind, followed by the notification of his newly padded balance. Tetsu’s smile softened into something far more genuine. The startup capital was secured. Step one of the plan had been executed to perfection.

“Thank you for the warm-up, Sakayanagi-san.”