“I’m just glad everyone’s safe. Seiya, Yukine, you didn’t run into any other Guardians, did you?”

Fuka and I had already fought, but I wondered about the other two.

“I went looking for Yukine right away. I figured the closest dot on the Map must be her.”

“I knew Seiya would be looking for me, so I stayed still and waited. Quietly, in a Pitfall.”

So Yukine had intentionally stayed inside a hole, not moving.

That’s an unexpected use for a Pitfall. Since the lid can be opened and closed freely, once it’s shut, no one would notice.

“I see. Well, we did have a fight with a Guardian.”

“For real?! And—did you win? Oh, wait, I don’t even need to ask about you, sis.”

“What about you, Kaname-san? I don’t need to ask about Fuka-san.”

The two, still excited, shot questions at me.

Feeling Fuka’s sulky gaze burning into my back, I recounted how we’d gotten here.

“So, both of you ended in a draw.”

“Then the number of Death Parade TDs hasn’t changed.”

“Unfortunately. We were too busy just trying to survive.”

With the Visor, I’d managed to manage despite a bad match-up in TDS, but if we’d been up against a pure long-range TDS, it would’ve been rough.

That said, with the three of us together now, we could handle just about any enemy.

Now that the conversation had settled, I activated my Jewel to check my stats and abilities.

Guardian: Kaname Katakami
Height: 178 cm Age: 34

Level: 6
TDP: 16
TDS: Arrow Trap, Decoy
Remaining Allocation Points: 2

◆ Arrow Trap
Power: 2m Deployment Cost: 1 Activation Time: 0s Cooldown: 1s Range: 1m Placement: Ground/Wall

◆ Decoy
Power: 0 Deployment Cost: 10 Activation Time: 0s Cooldown: 0s Range: Visible Area Placement: Ground

Looking at it again... I’ve come a long way.

Level 6 now, and my TDP has increased. If it’s just Arrow Trap, I don’t need to worry about TDP consumption.

And the traps themselves have improved quite a bit. As for Decoy… I’ll keep my hopes up. Maybe there’s a way to use it that I haven’t thought of. Though it’s a slim chance.

“Still pathetic as ever. Want to see my TDS? Come on, come on.”

Fuka peeked at my screen and snorted, then shoved her own status display at me, projected from her Jewel.

Oh right, it was still set so that she could see mine.

I wanted to push her away, but honestly, I was curious about her abilities. I stayed quiet and looked at her projected stats.

Guardian: Fuka Kusazuri
Height: 155 cm Age: 22

Level: 6
TDP: 16
TDS: Ballista, Iron Ball Trap
Remaining Allocation Points: 0

◆ Ballista
Power: 50 Deployment Cost: 8 Activation Time: 10s Cooldown: 10s Range: 50m Placement: Ground

◆ Iron Ball Trap
Power: 50 Deployment Cost: 8 Activation Time: 10s Cooldown: 20s Range: 3m diameter iron ball Placement: Wall/Ground

Her level matched mine. I’d seen Ballista before, so I knew it. Iron Ball Trap was another hard-to-handle ability.

But there was something that caught my attention even more.

“Fuka…”

“What? What? Are you speechless from how amazing I am?”

She was the perfect example of an overconfident smug face.

Ignoring her annoying expression, I pointed at a specific part of her display.

“Looks like you have no allocation points left?”

“Yup, used them all! Doesn’t it bother you to just leave those sitting there? If you’ve got ’em, you’ve gotta spend ’em all at once!”

She didn’t seem to realize what she’d done and kept bragging.

“First, I added more placement options to Iron Ball Trap! It was a pain only being able to use it on walls, so now it can go on the ground too. I’m amazing, right?”

She placed her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest.

She stared at me silently, clearly waiting for praise.

“I think that was the right call. You did good there. But… what about the rest of the points?”

“Heh heh heh. You really wanna know? I reduced the deployment cost for both traps by 2! So now they’re both 8! Which means—ta-da! I can activate both at the same time!”

Ah, I see. Her TDP had increased to 16, so now she could deploy Ballista and Iron Ball Trap simultaneously.

She didn’t say it out loud, but her face was screaming “Praise me, praise me.”

I looked toward the twins who had quietly come up behind me to listen, and just like me, they shrugged and let out an exaggerated sigh.

“““Haaaaaahhh…”””

“What’s with that reaction?! This is where you go, ‘Fuka-sama, you’re a genius! The reincarnation of Cleopatra! As a woman, I’m utterly defeated!’ Come on, don’t be shy!”

She waved us toward her with both hands outstretched, wrists flicking in a beckoning gesture.

Her head tilted backward and mouth slightly open—it was like she was deliberately trying to get on our nerves.

“Listen, normally you leave some points as insurance for emergencies. Seiya and Yukine didn’t use up all theirs, right?”

“Obviously.”

“It’s common sense.”

When I brought it up, they nodded seriously and firmly.

They understood how important it was to save some points.

“Eh, eehhh… But like, I’m the type who doesn’t carry money overnight.”

“…Did you play an otome game set in the Edo period?”

“How do you know that?!”

Fuka’s eyes went wide in shock.

Well, I mean, based on everything she’s said so far, there’s no way she’d know that phrase otherwise.

“What’s done is done. But next time, you should try to save a few points.”

“Yes, I will sincerely consider it moving forward.”

“…Have you also played an otome game with Diet members in it?”

“You’re reading my mind?!”

Leaving the pointless banter with Fuka aside, the four of us decided to hold a strategy meeting to plan our next steps.

"I think we should go check out the fortress—that was our original goal."

"I agree with Seiya. The people who defended that fortress seem to be planning to regroup there and then fight over the reward Death Parade TDs."

The twins agreeing with each other was nothing new, but the way they spoke made it sound like they already had a grasp on the fortress group's behavior patterns.

"Yukine-chan. What makes you so sure they’re planning to fight over it?"

Fuka, were you even listening? Good question.
I was wondering the same thing.

"When the third day started, we were teleported to the mountain peak, right? Seiya and I were gathering information. There were a few groups chatting in clusters, so we snuck close and listened in."

"We heard some of them saying they’d return to the fortress, and while they were fighting over the rewards, they’d take the chance to start a battle royale and steal other TDs too. Pretty dangerous talk."

These twins are really something.
At that time... I was stuck dealing with Fuka. What a waste of time. I need to reflect on that.

"Apparently, the fortress group split into two major factions, and they had agreed to regroup at the fortress if anything happened. They said there were two smart, quick-thinking leaders."

"We couldn’t catch their names, but it sounded like there was a fight over which leader to follow."

This is critical information.
There are only four reward TDs, so I expected them to split into groups of four. But that wasn’t the case. Maybe someone with charisma took charge and organized things.

"Kaname-san, Kaname-san. Isn’t it dangerous to mess with them?"

"Yeah. With this, taking them down one by one just got a lot harder. But still..."

Leaving them alone is risky too.
If we ignore them, those well-organized leaders will form a dangerous team.

"Even considering the risk of getting involved, we can’t just leave them be."

"Right. Whoever survives that will be a serious problem for us later."

"Whether we fight them or not, we should at least observe and get a grasp on the situation."

"I don’t really get it, but I’m with everyone else!"

The twins and Fuka all agreed, so it was time to wrap things up.

"Unanimous then. Let’s move close to the fortress first, and respond based on what we see from there."

No objections. Our course for the day was decided.

"But the fortress is pretty far from here... I mean, really far, right?"

"Um, it was here, I think. If we start heading out now, I wonder how long it’ll take..."

The twins opened the Map and pointed to our current location and the fortress.
We couldn’t get an exact distance, but on the map, it was a long way northeast.
Even if we walked all day without resting, it wasn’t certain we’d make it.

"If we’re walking, we’ve got someone who’ll slow us down..."

"Ah, yeah, that’s true."

"Definitely going to slow us down."

The twins and I all turned to look at Fuka.

"Who are you calling dead weight!? I’ll give them a piece of my mind!"

She raised her right fist defiantly, clearly fired up, but her gaze was unfocused.
No one spoke. Silence dominated the group.
Maybe succumbing to the unspoken pressure, Fuka raised her left arm as well, dropped to her knees, and smoothly bowed her head to the ground.

"I’ll do my best, but I’ll probably collapse partway through."

An honest and humble admission of her own limits.
Time to toss her a lifeline.

"No need to worry about how we move. If we use my traps, we can get there a lot faster."

I planted an Arrow Trap on the ground and smiled confidently.

"Oh yeah, that’s right. With Kaname-san’s trap, we can save a lot of time."

"But do we have enough TDP?"

"TDP recovers automatically, one point per second. An Arrow Trap only costs one to set. I can use it continuously without issue."

That said, it’s still mentally taxing, so I was planning to take breaks along the way.

"Alrighty then, now that the problem’s solved, let’s all get moving!"

Fuka clapped her hands and urged everyone to hurry.
I really wish I could learn to bounce back and switch gears that fast.

We were back on the cliff where we hid last time.
Our backpacks were safely retrieved.
We were all lying low, crawling on the ground, watching the fortress below.

The area around the fortress was pitch-black. The only thing we could rely on was the starlight. We could barely make anything out in the dim light.

It was well past midnight, with less than thirty minutes until sunrise.

"That was cutting it pretty close."

The distance had been greater than expected, and the Arrow Trap doesn’t have a feature to dodge obstacles in the path. So it had been useless in winding or obstacle-heavy routes. That hurt.

"But hey, there aren’t any lights in the fortress. Maybe we really are the first ones here?"

"I don’t think anyone else made it before us."

Even with all the trouble, it took us this long using this method. Anyone traveling on foot would take much longer.

"You know, we could lie in wait around here and ambush them when they’re tired... I mean, that’s pretty underhanded though. Maybe too much."

Fuka scratched her head awkwardly, smiling in embarrassment.
In response, we—

"That’s... actually not a bad idea."

"Right? We could set traps ahead of time along the path they’ll take."

"They’ll probably be letting their guard down."

The three of us huddled together and chuckled, "kukuku."

"Scary! You guys are seriously scary!"

Fuka backed away from our huddle and cowered alone, while the rest of us started discussing our next move.