Divinity

--- [Lett’s perspective]

The games have begun…

The winner of the first game is whoever can hit the hardest.

We’ll both use charged attacks to hit as hard as we possibly can.

I can’t remember the exact number, but my score in round two was roughly 5200.

I didn’t use a charged attack though, so I can push that number a lot higher.

Illian did however use a charged attack…

What was his score again…?

50000?

51000?

Something along those lines.

That’s considerably higher than mine, but that was his full power; I still haven’t shown mine.

Alex is the one who’s score was the most unexpected…

He didn’t even use a charged attack, yet his score was almost 40000…

How did he get so strong, so quickly…?

Anyways, let’s get this over with.

“You didn’t say anything about who goes first. I’ll do it, if that’s okay.” – Lett

“Fine by me.” – Lia

She might have an edge over me, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try my best!

Just before I close my eyes, I notice Roxy looking directly at me, ready to measure my strength.

I take a deep breath and relax every muscle in my body as I take my stance.

My breathing stops, and my heart slows down…

Not a single muscle moves, and almost all bodily functions shut down.

My mind, body, and soul, dedicate themselves to one thing, and one thing only…

Gathering and controlling as much Divinity as possible!

I instinctively know when I reach my limit; any more and it’ll overflow…

My arm moves on its own, releasing a devastating blow.

…

And just like that, it’s over.

I open my eyes, and take a few breaths…

Now, what’ll my score be…?

“41473.” – Roxy

I see…

Illian is still stronger than me then.

Not exactly unexpected, but good to know…

But never mind that, it doesn’t matter if I’m stronger than Illian or not.

Right now, it’s me versus Lia, not Illian.

“Not bad.” – Lia

Just like me, she closes her eyes and gathers as much Divinity as she can.

After a short while, she releases it…!

“72659.” – Roxy

…

It wasn’t even close…

So this is the power of a D-ranker…

“I won the first game, let’s move on to the second. But let me remind you, if I win this too, I win it all.” – Lia

I know that very well, but regardless of how powerful she is, there’s no way she beats me in a short race.

My specialty isn’t suited for long distances, but I can easily teleport across a relatively small arena like this.

She has already seen my ability; there’s no way she thinks she’s actually winning…

“I know. Let’s get it over with.” – Lett

She simply nods, and we walk up to the wall.

“First person to get to the opposite side, wins.” – Lett

“Right. Leanne, start the countdown.” – Lia

“Okie-dokie!” – Leanne

She clears her throat, and begins counting down.

“Five. Four. Three. Two…” – Leanne

I breathe out, and prepare to use my ability…

“One… Go! And we have a winner!” – Leanne

The moment she said ‘go’, I instantly teleported to the other side, winning the race before Lia could even take her first step.

She knew she stood no chance, and doesn’t look very upset by her loss.

Her ability is powerful, but the fact that her opponent gets to choose one of the games makes it almost certain that she’ll lose one round.

Now that I think about it, despite her ability specifically only working on one person at a time, I don’t think one-on-one fights is where it shines the brightest…

I don’t know anything about her as a person, or what guild she is part of, but if she’s an assassin, having her on the job along with someone else would make failure almost impossible.

If she uses her ability on someone, that person is tied down to a chair that seals their Divinity manipulation.

They’re defenseless…

With a teammate, they could easily take their targets life…

Despite it not being best suited for one-on-ones, she has no other option.

She might be stronger than me, but my specialty more than makes up for it.

With no ability of her own, she’d likely lose if we fought head-on.

“Now then, onto the final game. We’ve both won one game each, meaning whoever wins this, takes it all…” – Lia

“Are you finally going to explain the game then?” – Lett

“Of course! As you might have noticed, my ability is all about fairness. Breaking the rules, be it me or you, will result in a loss. As will not cooperating, or not explaining. Since we decide the rules of one game each, we’ll obviously choose a game that is advantageous to ourselves. Because of that, I almost always end up in this exact situation; one win each. Like everything else, the final game is as fair as it gets… A game of chance!” – Lia

A game of chance?!

I don’t know what I expected, but that’s certainly not it…

When I think about it though, it does make sense…

“The final game is always a best of five in rock, paper, scissors. Whoever wins three times takes it all. You know the rules, right?” – Lia

“Of course… Who doesn’t?” – Lett

“Great! I was just asking in case you didn’t!” – Lia

Rock, paper, scissors…

So it’s all up to chance then?

Or…

Could there be some sort of strategy?

It’s possible, but I’ve never thought about it before.

She has obviously done this many times before; if there is a reliable strategy, she knows.

If it almost always comes down to this final game, she must have put a lot of thought into how to maximize her chances of success.

Even if it’s just exploiting her opponent’s faulty strategy and not some foolproof way to win, there must be something there…

I doubt even Shin could make up a strategy that would give him better than 50% odds against someone like that…

My chances are at best 50%, but likely lower.

There is however one thing I can do to maximize the likelihood of me winning, and that is giving up on finding a strategy.

If the best it can get for me is 50%, then why not embrace that?

If all my moves are random, there’s no strategy in the world that could give her an advantage.

Selecting my moves as the game is being played will likely lead to my subconscious not letting me pick a truly random move; I need to decide on all my moves now…

I still remember my score from the first game; it was 41473.

There are no zeroes in it, so I don’t have to worry about that.

Without it, there are nine digits; one through nine.

If I divide them into groups of three, I can perfectly map them onto the three moves.

One, two, or three, and it’s rock.

Four, five, or six, and it’s paper.

Seven, eight, or nine, and it’s scissors.

Meaning my first five moves will be: paper, rock, paper, scissors, rock…

But what if it goes beyond five moves?

It’s possible that we get a few draws, so I need to prepare more moves…

I can’t just repeat the same ones either, she’ll definitely catch on if I do.

I know…!

If I give myself a math problem I have no way of knowing the result of before I calculate it myself, the result is as random as it can possibly get.

43 times 71 plus 23.

Uhm…

Let’s see…

It should be…

And then…

So…

Aha!

3076.

It has a zero in it though…

Let’s just get rid of it; that leaves me with 376.

Meaning the next three moves will be: rock, scissors, and finally paper.

That’s eight moves; eight digits…

I doubt I could keep track of any more than that…

If I’m forced to come up with any additional moves after that, I’ll just have to wing it.

This is as close to random as it can get.

“I’m ready, let’s begin.” – Lett