At 9:32 a.m. on Saturday, everyone boarded the large RV prepared by Nao Hayasaka.
Their destination was a hot spring village in Tochigi Prefecture.
The journey was much longer than expected, but everyone passed the time chatting and playing games.
Among them, the one having the most fun was undoubtedly Chika.
"Hehe, see? This is the power of being a Spectator."
While playing the UNO card game, Fujiwara Chika fully demonstrated the observational skills of a Spectator, which completely overwhelmed the others.
Unlike the rest who had to consider whether cheating was involved, for Chika, cheating seemed almost instinctive, imprinted deep in her soul.
"…"
Nagi looked at her own hand of cards, her face twitching uncontrollably.
"You cheated!"
"Hehe."
Chika smiled proudly.
"Nagi-chan, you're blaming me? Weren't you just using the wind to cheat yourself? You deliberately controlled the wind to peek at Sakuya's cards. At least I'm not using any extraordinary abilities to cheat. Everything I know, I figured out just by observing."
Aizawa Sakuya was stunned. She looked at her hand of cards with a distressed expression, then turned toward Nagi, who immediately averted her eyes in guilt.
"Nagi-chan, how could you? You actually used your cheating ability on me, the only ordinary girl here without any superpowers."
She had been relying solely on her own observation skills to compete in this game against people with supernatural abilities. God knew how frustrating it was to keep losing, but discovering that her dearest sister had been using her abilities to peek at her cards was simply unacceptable.
"It doesn't count as cheating. Her cheating is way worse and more blatant than mine. Why aren't you saying anything about her?"
Feeling guilty, Nagi kept shifting her gaze. Unable to withstand Sakuya's intense stare any longer, she quickly tried to shift the blame back onto Chika.
Chika proudly puffed out her chest.
"I'm not using any extraordinary abilities to cheat. I'm simply playing as a Spectator. Acting like this in daily life helps me digest the potion faster, which is a good thing. Besides, observing people with extraordinary abilities is also part of the game. Watching is a very effective gambling technique."
"Sakuya, you get it, right?"
Aizawa Sakuya sighed helplessly and nodded as Fujiwara Chika stared at her eagerly.
"True, observation is indeed a powerful gambling technique. As long as you're not cheating through disgraceful means, the casino won't openly throw you out. People with keen eyesight can often deduce someone's intentions through their expressions and behavior."
"But even among such people, no one can make judgments as accurate as you."
"You're the only one capable of reading a person's thoughts so precisely."
Excluding luck and outright cheating, being able to accurately gauge a person's mind was practically a superpower in itself.
Especially since this ability didn't rely on supernatural powers, but purely on heightened observation skills. In a sense, it really could be considered a kind of superpower.
"Ran, you cheated just now too, didn't you?"
"Eh?"
Ran, who had been quietly sitting nearby, hadn't expected the topic to shift to her so suddenly. With everyone's eyes on her, she nodded shyly.
"Sorry, Sakuya."
"I didn't mean to cheat. I just noticed that your heartbeat changed slightly whenever you played certain cards, so I listened more carefully… I didn't expect my guess to be correct."
"…"
Even those with supernatural abilities were left speechless, staring at Ran, who looked full of apologies.
Aizawa Sakuya, who had brought up the topic of cheating, also found it completely outrageous.
"The RV may be quiet, but for you to pick up on heartbeats like that… Ran, your five senses are insane. They're more impressive than actual superpowers."
Sighing, Aizawa Sakuya put down her hand of cards.
"Forget it. You all keep playing. I'm going to find Amamiya."
Trying to play games against a group of cheaters who were using super-powered methods felt hopeless. It was too easy to get crushed in a game where the cheating couldn't even be easily detected.
She walked down the RV's aisle toward the second floor.
When Aizawa Sakuya reached the second floor, she found Ren seated at a long table, lighting incense and drawing a strange array on the table with white chalk. He seemed deeply focused on his research.
Seeing how seriously Ren was working, she quietly sat down beside him and watched.
She noticed that the incense smoke began to swirl around the array as if being drawn into it.
The chalk-drawn array on the table also began to rotate in a strange pattern.
The scale of the array gradually shrank, and the smoke sank rapidly into it.
When the smoke fully entered the spinning array, a brilliant flash of light erupted, temporarily blinding Aizawa Sakuya.
Her consciousness grew hazy, but her vision quickly returned.
However, she realized that she was no longer sitting at the table. Instead, her head was resting on Ren's lap.
"???"
Aizawa Sakuya was completely confused.
"Don't move."
Just as she was about to sit up, a hand gently pressed her down.
"Let me check your condition."
Hearing that, Aizawa Sakuya obediently stayed still.
"Hmm. It looks like you were just hit by the amulet's light. It's not a big issue. You're not experiencing nausea or vomiting, so it's not a flash bomb effect. A brief coma like this is within expectations."
Listening to Ren's explanation, Aizawa Sakuya felt relieved. She was lucky. If nausea and vomiting had been involved, she would have been completely miserable.
Just as she was feeling thankful, she realized that her head was slowly being lifted.
She wanted to move but felt completely powerless.
"I… I can't move…"
"Wait."
Suddenly, Aizawa Sakuya felt the weakness in her body begin to fade, and her strength gradually returned.
"How do you feel now?"
"Much better."
Aizawa Sakuya nodded slightly. She felt herself being gently helped up and placed onto the sofa.
Clenching her fists slightly, she found that her body could now move on its own, allowing her to sit up with her own strength.
When she turned her head, she saw Ren writing something in a notebook. However, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make out the words—or even if she saw them, she couldn't remember what they were.
(To be continued.)
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