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Nanana’s Buried Treasure Volume 8 Chapter 1.6

But there is a perfect countermeasure. The condition for being influenced by Ikusaba-san’s suggestion is to hear the verbal command or instruction while the ring is in view. In other words, if you are not even looking at the ring when you are being given an order, you will not be influenced by it.

Sansa-san saw through it and actually defeated Ikusaba-san. I want to try it out for myself to be sure.

OK, if I pay close attention to Ikusaba-san’s movements, I can take my eyes off the ring. Now that I’m not looking at the ring, I’m not under the hypnosis. My attention is directed to the card on the left without any problem. I don’t even want to draw the card on the right. I’ve created a perfect countermeasure against Hiiyo Ikusaba. Now there is nothing to be afraid of.

So I happily reached out for the card on the left. Half way through though, my hand stopped. No, I couldn’t reach any further for the card. My fingers were touched by something like an invisible wall.

‘What is going on?’, I thought. I soon realized that it was the ability of <<Humpty Dumpty>>, one of Ageha-ojousama’s Nanana collection, who was watching from behind me.  The question is, why did Ageha-ojousama use it on me right now?

I raised my head and looked at Ikusaba-san’s face in front of me. Our eyes met and the corners of his eyes twitched.

No way!

I quickly reached for the card on my right and flipped it over. That card was a white card, meaning the card I was about to turn over on the left was a joker.

「Servant A has turned over all four of his white cards. Therefore, the score is 4 to 3, and the Young Lady team wins. 100 coins will be transferred from the Great Detective’s Team to the Young Lady Team.」

Despite the announcement of the results from Yuiga (the banker), I was still in a cold sweat. That was dangerous. Ikusaba-san had taken advantage of the fact that we had seen through his <<absolute command>> ability. I can’t believe that he would go to the lengths of giving me an <<absolute command>> to pick the card that would result in him losing.

「Phew, the poison hasn’t completely worn off yet.」

Ikusaba-san has been feeling pretty bad ever since his defeat to Sansa-san. If Sansa-san’s poison hadn’t remained in him, and Ageha-ojousama hadn’t supported him, he would have been completely fooled.

He suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the GREAT 7’s Kurosu Sansa, suffered great mental damage and had all his tricks exposed, yet he still showed this much wit. As expected, Hiiyo Ikusaba is not to be underestimated.

Meanwhile, the task in the room for the squares that were landed on were cleared by The Sakura Team, but the Cat Ear Team was unable to gain any coins due to the failure of M.

The 36th turn was a three-way <<forced acquisition game>>. The three teams were our Young lady team, the Great Detective Team, and the Sakura Team.

The three of us were in formation and were opposed by Ikusaba-san from the Great Detective Team, and Yukihime-neesan of the Sakura Team. That’s right, the representative of the Great Detective Team’s representative wasn’t the Great Detective which had been up beside me and kicking me, or munching on an egg sandwich while sitting at the bar, but was Ikusaba-san.

Facing these two in the robbery room is…

「Foolish beings, bow down before me!」

She is the true young lady, Hanachou Ageha-ojousma.

There are two reasons we made this choice. Ageha-ojousama, who was raised as a young lady with a special education, can behave confidently in front of anyone. And we can support Ageha-ojousan from behind the scenes using the Nanana collection. And also the deciding factor for my strategy. Tetsu-kun (wearing sunglasses) and I were the spectators watching the battle between the three teams.

Well anyways…

「Thank you for helping earlier, Tetsu-kun.」

During the game with Ikusaba-san, it was Tetsu-kun who noticed Ikusaba-san’s bluff and told Ageha-ojousama to use <<humpty dumpty>>. He pushed up his sunglasses with his index finger.

「Don’t worry about it.」

「So how is it? Have you gotten used to those glasses?」

「Honestly, it’s a little weird.」

Tetsu-kun pushed his sunglasses down. His right eye was completely different from his left eye, with a distinctive pupil that looked like one of a reptile.

It is Hamaji-kun’s Nanana collection <<reptile eyes>>. Its true identity is a drug, an eye drop, that transforms the user’s eyes into those of a reptile.

Among the Nanana collection that Ageha-ojousama had received from her 3 normal butlers was a palm-sized vial. The drug contained in the suspicious purple bottle was the <<reptile eyes>>. It was said to be a cursed item created by a certain jungle sorcerer hundreds of eyars ago.

「By the way, is it really safe to put that kind of rotten-looking liquid in your eyes?」

「Hamaji has used it a few times and hasn’t had any problems so far.」

「Umm, so Ageha-ojousama has never used it….?」

「There’s no way I’d use such a questionable drug.」

「I see…」

According to Ageha-ojousama, the effect lasts for about 30 minutes. After some discussion, it was decided that Tetsu-kun would use it on his right eye. There was a few reasons for this.

「Is it still hard to see?」

「Yeah, my right eye can’t see anything around me.」

Tetsu-kun’s right eye, which has become reptilian, can only see the temperature of his surroundings. It cannot see anything in normal scenary. In other words, in terms of his field of vision, Tetsu-kun can only see half, and is having a hard time.

This really is the risk of using <<reptilian eyes>>.

Due to visibility and appearance issues, the user shouldn’t participate in the <<forced acquisition game>>. To begin with, Ageha-ojousama refused to use it, and I didn’t want to take the risk of impairing my visibility in order to assess a situation. That’s why Tetsu-kun ended up using it.

Tetsu-kun is confused and not used to taking such risks. He narrows his right eye as he stares intently at Yukihime-neesan and Ikusaba-san, who are facing off against Ageha-ojousama.

「I can clearly understand our opponent’s reactions.」

I’ve come up with a few patterns on how to make good use of Tetsu-kun’s <<reptilian eyes>>, my <<ghost hand>>, and Ageha-ojousama’s <<humpty dumpty>>.

If it’s a game of bargaining, Tetsu-kun will check the opponent’s reaction. I’ll use the <<ghost hand>> and stealthfully tap Ageha-ojousama on the shoulder to tell her. On the other hand, if it’s a game like karuta, Ageha-ojousama will use <<humpty dumpty>> to hinder the opponent. If it’s a game that requires concentration like Jenga, I’ll distract with the <<ghost hand>>. Whether it’s difficult or easy games, we have countermeasures in place for a variety of games.

So which <<forced acquisition game>> we play is irrelevant. No matter what game it is, we will win, with the challenge being to adjust the plan according to the situation. In fact, for the three of us, the <<forced acquisition games>> went just as we had expected.

As for our two opponents who didn’t understand our strategy, Ageha-ojousama continues to take the lead. We’re trying to steal as few coins from our opponents as possible. We deliberately adjust the games so that the teams are as even as possible.

The result was a success.

She managed to adjust everything just as planned.

After the match was over, Yukihime-neesan and Ikusaba-san glared at me as I was standing at the edge of the robbery room as a spectator.

It seems they noticed what I was thinking. This is where things get tough.

「Well well」, Ikusaba-san says with a wry smile.

Yukihime-san looked sulky and said, 「Jeez, this sucks.」

However, they both nodded at me once.

As expected of these two intelligent people, it seems they completely realized my intentions.

At the end of turn 36

Detective Team (blue spade): Detective (Sulking) & Thief – 721 Coins

Sakura Team (yellow diamond): Yamato Nadeshiko & Military Uniform –719 coins (Begging Time Used)

Lady’s Team (green club): Lady & Servant A & Servant B – 1609 coins

Cat Ears Team (red heart): Cat Ears Mask & Cat Ears-chan – 242 coins

What I’ve been alluding to is this: Our Young Ladies Team will not interfere in the battle for second place at all. What this does is help with a problem that our three teams collectively all have, and are trying to find a solution to.  Namely that problem is M, and her defeat.

Although everyone wanted that, the reason they couldn’t come up with a clear way to do it is because everyone had different goals in mind. It was difficult to come to a consensus and move towards that goal when three teams were fighting each other to advance to the next round. We had to knock each other down in order to advance. Doing that while being cautious about the worst case scenario of M winning was impossible.