Chapter 3

For now, I’ve been calling this whole mysterious desert event thing “Super Desert Survival”—SDS for short.

Wooow. That name sucks.

Sorry, I just gave it some random name. I’m not really the kinda person who puts a lot of stock into stuff like that. Koga-kun, on the other hand, actually cares a surprising amount about it.

I know exactly whatcha mean~ He’s super committed to that “cool kid” aesthetic.

Yep yep. I never expected him to put so much effort into like, word choice and stuff. Lately it seems like he’s been pouring himself into the lyrics he writes, too.

Aaaanyways, the rules of SDS are plain and simple.

It’s a scramble for Desert Coins.

You mentioned that earlier—What are these Desert Coin things?

Hinata-kun, check your pocket. You’ve got some coins in there, right?

Uhhh?

Oh, there’s some wallet here that I’ve never seen before… It’s super heavy, too.

Good. If someone’d stolen it while you were asleep, you would’ve been fresh out of luck.

Take good care of that, okay? You’ve probably got a hundred Desert Coins in there, if they haven’t been stolen already.

One, two, three… Yeah, that amount looks about right.

In this desert, it’s all about Desert Coins. If you run into another idol, some announcement will come out of the blue and you’ll be forced into a battle with them.

So it really is Pokémon… What’s this battle thing then? Do I like, give ‘em the People’s Elbow?

Uh, no, SS is a festival for idols, so they’re not gonna have us do something so violent.

It looks like everything we do will be recorded and broadcast on some program—

So I doubt they’ll let it get physical. Well, I guess I can’t say for certain, since I got roughed up a bit, myself.

But essentially, the battle’s gonna be like a TV show—or, like a variety show-type thing.

It’ll have stuff like quizzes or speed eating contests. You know, like what you did during Twin Peaks.

Ohh… They’ve got a ton of those variety-like things nowadays. We like them, and we’re pretty good at them too, but it’s still hard to get used to it since Yumenosaki was all lives, all the time.

Same here. Performing is bad enough, but in variety you can’t just lay on the practice and get good at it. So I’m way nervous every time it comes up.

You never know what kind of curve balls are coming your way, so you can’t even plan ahead for it. You’re just living on a prayer.

Variety covers a huuuge range, after all.

You know it. But I guess idols are supposed to be able to do all that stuff already.

Anywho, according to that mysterious announcer, we idols are supposed to bet our Desert Coins in games like that.

Looks like the amount of Coins we’re betting is up to the announcer, too.

And it’ll keep going like that for some time… And in the end, only the units with the most Desert Coins get to stay.

All the defeated units are told to hit the road, and they lose their right to go to SS.

Ohh, so that’s what you meant when you said they were sifting through the units?

Yep. I also said these are the Qualifiers for the Qualifiers. I think they’re trying to sift out the unskilled idols and have another round of SS Qualifiers for the worthy few who’re left standing.

That leaves a bad taste in my mouth… Especially since there are guys like us trying to turn the tables by participating in SS.

And now the Administration’s just ripping that opportunity away from us on a whim.

Ngh… It’d be some kinda authoritarianism if the Administration forcibly took away our right to perform at SS.

So on the surface, they’ve made it look like anyone can win SDS—

Like they’re telling us not to complain because oh, everyone has an equal chance of winning. And that’s probably how they announced it to the public, too.

But you know. In reality, it’s a fixed game.

…?

I happened to stumble upon the details of this SDS, but this is all probably coming out of nowhere for you, Hinata-kun.

The Administration probably only explained everything to the powerful units they want to see win.

So it’ll be easy for the units who know everything to eat the “unskilled” idols like us for breakfast.

Actually, when I was out wandering around the desert by myself without a clue about what was going on—when that veteran idol came up to talk to me…

He tricked me and stole all the Desert Coins I had on me.

I even tried to act friendly—I kept smiling and nodding like an idiot at everything he said just so I wouldn’t get on his bad side...

Then at some point in the conversation, I ended up handing over the wallet that had all my Desert Coins in it…

When I asked them what it was for, they burst into laughter and spilled all the details. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late—

The idol who took all my Coins made their getaway in something that looked like a buggy.

Apparently you can use those Desert Coins to buy all sorts of useful items somewhere around here.