A short while later, I decided to find a place to rent a room for myself. I started walking to leave the city hall. When I reached the building's entrance, I ran into a gray-haired, brown-eyed, medium-height young man dressed in black—charismatic. He looked young. When he saw me looking at him, he looked back at me and greeted me.
"You seem like you're new around here. Want to get acquainted? What's your name?"
"My name is Rei. What's yours?"
"My name is Gyoma. Nice to meet you."
Gyoma approached me with a kind smile. He seemed to have figured out that I wanted to rent a room.
"Since you're new, you want to rent a room, right?"
"Yes, I have money. I just need to find a hotel."
"I see. If you turn left here, you'll find the Hibizma Hotel. Their prices are reasonable. I'm staying there too. Would you like to go together?"
The man was behaving better than I had expected, which made me a little suspicious. Nevertheless, I nodded in approval. We started walking toward the hotel. Gyoma looked at me and began to speak.
"Everyone has a reason for coming here. Why did you come here, Rei?"
"For the tournament."
"I understand. Most people come for the tournament anyway."
"Why did you come?"
"I came for the tournament too."
I could tell Gyoma was lying. I had never seen him in the first capsule, but pointing out his lie wouldn't benefit me, so I kept it to myself. After walking a while longer, we arrived at the hotel. I was looking at the entrance door.
"My room is on the left. You can buy a room from the reception. I wish you a good day."
"Alright, thank you. Good day."
I moved past the entrance and arranged a ten-day room for one thousand game coins. I had four thousand game coins remaining. After taking the room key, I headed to room number twenty-one and opened the door. The room was a plain, small place. Even though it was afternoon, the dark atmosphere of this region had worn me out, so I lay down on my bed. When I checked my phone, there were still many hours until the registration game, so I decided to sleep.
After sleeping for a long time, I suddenly woke up alongside a dream I'd had. I immediately checked my phone for the game—about an hour remained. I thought I had slept so much because I was tired. Then Gyoma came to my mind.
I got up and washed my face and hands. I bought some ready-to-eat food from the hotel shop and ate slowly. When I consumed the nutrients, I could feel myself starting to recover; I felt better. I saw there were thirty minutes left until the game began. I sat on the carpet in my room, planning to be in an available position for the game.
When the thirty minutes ended, I suddenly found myself in a dark room. I could tell this was the registration room game. A five-minute countdown timer had started on the ceiling of the dark room; I was observing my surroundings.
The registration room game has begun!
Please state the correct password out loud within five minutes. Good luck!
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The moment the robotic voice spoke, the lines on the walls of the pitch-black room began to glow faintly. I could perceive that four lines formed one square. When I thought about the square, an idea immediately came to my mind. As I looked at the wall, I imagined the glowing lines forming squares in my mind. I understood that I needed to count the squares. There were eight squares vertically, and the squares extending sideways were five. When I added up all the squares, the first short wall should have forty squares.
I hope my math is enough...
Four minutes remaining!
I turned around. The wall here was the same size as the previous wall I had looked at, so with quick thinking, one might assume this one should also be forty. But I thought I had time, so I started counting again from scratch. When I finished counting, I noticed that one glowing line had been deliberately omitted—meaning one square couldn't exist. The number of squares on this wall had to be thirty-nine. I understood that a small deception had been placed for those who thought too quickly. I was glad I had checked.
Forty plus thirty-nine makes seventy-nine. I need to keep this in mind.
I turned my face to one of the other two long walls. Continuing with the same logic, I counted the squares—there were sixty squares here. A symbol at the bottom of the wall caught my attention. I crouched down and quickly looked at the symbol—I saw the division sign. This meant I had to divide the sixty itself by something.
But what I was supposed to divide it by wasn't stated. There were multiple numbers—if that were the case, it could come down to chance. So I quickly understood that they were sending the message that I should divide it by half. This wall's answer was thirty.
Two minutes remaining!
I immediately turned my face to the other long wall. There was no problem with the squares—this one should also be sixty. When I looked at the symbol below, I saw the same symbol here too. The divided versions of the two long walls were thirty, while their normal state was sixty squares.
I quickly looked down. There were no glowing lines here, but the floor seemed to be divided into tile squares. Understanding this was a deception, I counted the squares on the floor below and realized there were twenty squares here. There was nothing else around. Then what was under my foot came to mind. When I pulled my foot back, I saw the greater-than symbol from mathematics. Next to it was an equals sign, and next to the equals sign was a question mark. This meant I needed to arrange the numbers from largest to smallest.
I had imagined seventy-nine, but no one had told me to add them together—that was a product of my own imagination. So I began speaking out loud. I planned to use both the sixty itself and its divided version.
Thirty seconds remaining!
"The password is 60604039303020!"
The room became illuminated.
Correct answer!
You have registered for the tournament!
I took a deep breath. Then the room I was in vanished, and I found myself sitting on the carpet again. How they possessed such technology, I had no idea. Maybe they also had authority within the system, or maybe that man was running these things.
Math is so fucking hard...
I decided to go outside and take a short walk. When I left the hotel, I saw Gyoma. When Gyoma saw me, he smiled innocently once again.
"Did you pass the registration game, Rei?"
"Yes. You?"
He gave a look as if impressed that I had passed.
"I passed too. Well done."
"By the way, I wanted to ask something, Gyoma."
"What is it?"
"Can we send a message to someone with these phones?"
"Oh, yes. You can buy the messaging feature from the system store. Have you never checked there?"
"No, I haven't. Let me take a look."
I took my phone out of my pocket and checked the store. This feature could be added to the phone for two thousand game coins.
"Does the other person need to buy it too?"
"No, but it only opens a message box for one person. If you want more, you'd have to buy it again."
"I see."
I bought the feature for two thousand game coins, leaving me with two thousand game coins remaining. Making a large expenditure for my friends didn't bother me. I opened a message box with Lie and sent her a short message.
Message:
Lie, I found out there's a messaging function. I bought this for you all—you don't need to pay anything. You can reply from here. I'll be back as soon as possible, don't worry. I'm doing fine. See you soon.
As I looked at the screen, my eyes were slightly emotional. Gyoma wanted to look at the screen; when he moved his face closer, I put my phone in my pocket and once again assumed a serious expression. Seeing my face, Gyoma smiled and pulled his head back.
"Anyway, I'm heading toward the market. See you around, Rei."
"See you around."
Considering the registration room had been difficult, seeing that Gyoma had also survived let me understand that he wasn't weak. I would continue to question his good-natured behavior.