Chapter 4

Wowzers… So basically, you got played like a fiddle.

Essentially. It’s super embarrassing to admit, though. I was a little careless there—I doubt the old me would have walked right into their trap like that without even thinking.

I really just don’t have the energy for that anymore. I’ve gotten so used to letting Rei-kun think about all the hard stuff for me, I forgot how to use my own head. Guess I learned my lesson.

You always look like you’re thinking about every little thing though, so I’m sure you’ll be fine. You wouldn’t make a stupid mistake like I did.

Well, I am the leader of 2wink. I’ve gotta take all sorts of things into consideration.

But man, that’s so cruel… That’s just straight up theft.

Well, yeah. But it’s not like the Administration did anything about it. I guess theft is all fine and dandy out here in the desert. It’s my fault for letting myself get scammed.

I mean, they even set up this huge information gap between us by only telling the rules to the guys they wanted to win.

You’d think they’d have given some announcement about how the battles work when we first met up with another idol. But even after all was said and done, there wasn’t a peep out of them.

I’m positive the Administration knows I got scammed out of my Desert Coins, but as of now they haven’t said a thing about it. This desert is totally lawless.

Or maybe I should say that the Administration wants to see idols like us lose, so they’re going to ignore us no matter how crappy we’re treated.

I guess those at the top aren’t gonna hear a single thing the weak links or the losers have to say.

That’s so not fair… But I always thought UNDEAD was strong. Are you really the kind of “unskilled” idol the Administration wants taken down?

We’re still total nobodies in the eyes of society, though. The Administration’s made up of a bunch of high-ranking old geezers, so they’d probably want a veteran with a steady track record to win, right?

Or they might’ve heard us say stuff like “we’re extreme and immoral!” or “rock ‘n roll!” and thought we were rebellious troublemakers who’d go against them if we had the chance.

Like they thought we were hard to deal with and wanted us out of the way.

Huhhh? But you guys aren’t like that even a little bit lately…?

Well, yeah. Since the spring we’ve been sucking up to a bunch of bigwigs, so it’d make more sense to think of us as good little teacher’s pets.

Buuut it’s pretty hard to change someone’s first impressions of you.

Honestly, we’d probably be better off acting out and going on a rampage like Crazy:B did.

If no one’s gonna think of us as “good kids” no matter what we do, then why even bother, right?

But it’s hard to flip that switch at this point.

I tried playing bad boy when I got to high school by making a show of messing around, but I still ended up like this.

You can take the guy out of high society, but you can’t take high society out of the guy~ It’s way less stressful for me to play it safe and follow the rules.

Like, you can try to give me cigarettes or alcohol or something but it’s just gonna gross me out. I’d rather drink a glass of kale juice.

This guy’s way more of a teacher’s pet than I ever thought.

Ahaha. Oh, and one more thing before I forget—

I already said that the main objective here is to steal Desert Coins. But it looks like the only way to get those Coins is to win battles against other idols.

At least, that’s what they say. And if you run out of Coins, you can’t even get in a battle to begin with.

That’s why even if I meet another idol, since all of my coins have been stolen, there won’t even be an announcement that a battle’s started.

Ohh, so that’s why nothing’s happened while you've been talking to me all this time, huh?

Yep. Not that I particularly want to fight against 2wink, so I’m good with this.

But the problem is that there’s gonna be other people out there who wanna take your Desert Coins without fighting fair and square—like what happened with me.

There’s no guarantee that they won’t steal it, or even resort to violence or blackmail.

Seriously…? But won’t everything that happens here be broadcast on that program later on?

If word comes out that an idol’s done something so violent, they’ll lose everything they have—They wouldn’t be that reckless, would they?

Who can say? It feels like the Administration’s gonna make sure the idols they want to go to SS won’t be blamed for anything they might do.

So maybe that kind of thing will be conveniently edited out and they’ll pretend it never even happened.

They could even make up some excuse that they did something they didn’t want to do all because of their orders.

So long as there’s no direct footage of them doing something violent, it likely won’t cause any big waves.

There’s a ton of fans who’ll jump to the defense of their veteran idols, and even the Administration is on their side—If we tried to accuse them of injustice, I feel like it’d just be swept under the rug.

Or worse, they’d turn it back on us and say we’re lowlives just making crazy claims.

This is the worst… So in the end, only the strong can survive in this world, huh? Is our dream of making a big comeback just that? A dream?

I dunno. It’s not a zero percent chance, I don’t think. We’ve seen guys who used to be nobodies like Trickstar win against all odds again and again, haven’t we?

Miracles can happen.

You’ve just gotta keep believing in that. Keep on keeping on, and don’t give up. I’ll try it, too.

Welp, that’s that. So anyway, in exchange for telling you everything, you wanna give me some of your Desert Coins?

As long as you have Coins, you can participate in the battles. So there’s a possibility I can turn the tides with that.

Yikes, I was thinking you were being way too nice to me. So that was your aim, huh?

Well it is true that I don’t want you two to suffer through all that crap.

That’s why I explained everything I know, so you wouldn’t get hurt like I did.

Well, I guess I’m grateful for that.

You could always turn that gratitude into some Desert Coins for yours truly~ I’ll pay you back double later on, really really ♪

…I think just one person from each unit is made to participate in this SDS as a representative for the whole.

So if I can’t turn things around, UNDEAD is totally gonna lose, all because I was the one picked to represent us.

I don’t want my friends to suffer because of me.

I know it’s not very convincing coming from someone who cut class and caused all sorts of trouble back when I was at Yumenosaki.

But these are my honest feelings right now.

……