Chapter 10

These rules are so obnoxious… The other regions don’t seem to be doing anything like this, so why did Kansai go the action manga route?

You read manga, Secchan?

Yuu-kun’s gotten into it because his friend reads a lot, so I’ve started studying up on it too.

Is that friend Maa~kun? Huh, then maybe I should brush up on the games Yuu-kun likes…?

We’re getting off track again.

Yeah, right~! Take this more seriously, you guys!

It pisses me off ten times more when you’re the one lecturing me.

I know, right?

Ahem. (clears his throat)

—Anyway, that’s just one of the problems facing us.

Because we are prevented from participating in live showdowns, we have been earning SSL$ through non-confrontational lives and other means.

Yep. We want to stay away from other units as much as possible too, so right now we’re mostly doing video streams online.

Yeah. If we come into contact with another unit, we run the risk of them challenging us to a showdown.

And since everything we do is being broadcast on TV and the internet, it’s hard for us to turn them down.

At least if they’re trying to reach us through HoldHands, we can block their accounts or ghost them.

Yep. We’d lose for sure if we reject them outright, so instead we have to set it up so we can say we didn’t realize they’d challenged us.

So because of all that, we’ve been working a lot of jobs we’re not used to for a while now. But it’s fine; we’re still raking it in ‘cause we’re Knights.

Yes. However, in the case that my secret order is discovered—

Everyone’s orders were plastered all over town; the possibility of that happening is no laughing matter.

Agreed. If that happens, we may well become easy prey for the other units.

Everyone would be rushing to challenge us. But we can’t accept those challenges, lest we violate the secret order.

And so we will lose by default and forfeit half of our SSL$ to the challenger.

…We could never fight back; we would end up as nothing more than a piggy bank spitting out money whenever someone challenges us to a showdown.

Yeah, and if they give us the shakedown like that, all the SSL$ we worked so hard to earn will just poof—vanish into thin air.

Indeed. That is precisely why we must keep our secret order hidden!

If the fact that we’re a convenient piggy bank is exposed, we’ll be ripped apart until there is nothing left of us but our bones.

That’s a little, um, disgusting to think about.

Yeah, really~ Not only are we easy targets, but it’s also a huge blow to our honor.

We’ll be the butt of the joke, like “Ohh, those guys usually jump at the chance to duke it out, but they’re actually just cowards who won’t even fight back if you hit ‘em.”

Even if we try making excuses and saying it’s not like that at all, it’s not like we can tell them about the secret order or anything. Isn’t this a total dead end for us?

Essentially so. That’s why the best tactic we have at the moment is to earn an unrivaled amount of SSL$ before the secret order is exposed, so we can escape with the victory.

Ideally, I’d like to be able to end the Qualifying Rounds without having a single live downtown.

But in order to do that, it’s imperative that we stay out of the conflict unfolding within the Kansai region.

Ngh~… So far we’ve been able to scrape by because everyone’s too afraid to challenge us.

But we love fighting; normally, we should be jumping on this bandwagon. So it’s unnatural for us to be avoiding conflict…

Sooner or later, people are going to get suspicious, and if another poster reveals our secret order, we’re done for.

Yes. And in order to avoid the worst-case scenario, we’ve formed an alliance with Crazy:B to investigate who is behind the posters.

Mm, yeah… If those guys can find the culprit, we might be able to stop them from going any further.

And if we do that, we might be able to get away without our secret order being plastered all over town.

But can we even trust Crazy:B? They have been relatively level-headed these days, but even so…?

Right. Of course, I am no innocent child; unless given strong evidence, I would not be so naive as to think that they could never betray us.

However, one of their members, Oukawa, is part of the branch family off the Suou house. Should they betray us, it would be taken as a case of the branch family going against the head house.

In that case, I can use my authority as the head of the main family as pretext to impose sanctions on the Oukawa branch.

If I were so inclined, I could even bring the family to their own ruin.

We are not equals, he and I.

Perhaps you would see this as antiquated—But we have lived by this creed since the day we were born.

These values are engraved into our very bones.

……