Chapter 111
*
Clack, clatter…
The die rolled across the desk.
Jenny's eyes followed the tumbling six-sided die.
“…A 3?”
“The target number was 5, though. Too bad, Miss Jenny. You failed the observation check. You found nothing in this room.”
Jenny and I were suddenly playing an unexpected TRPG.
It was a game I started after Jenny said luck was everything.
“Not finding anything is a shame.”
Jenny didn't look very disappointed as she said that.
It was proof that she still wasn't fully immersed in the sudden TRPG.
But only for a moment.
“You enter the room and find a woman who hurls a rude question at you. On your first meeting, she even guesses that one of your family members has a nasty drinking habit.”
“Is this Charlotte, by any chance?”
“Maybe?”
I answered with a small smile instead.
Jenny stared at me silently for a while before snorting a laugh and saying,
“If it were me, I think I’d have been curious about that woman in that situation.”
“Not offended?”
“If the woman’s deduction had been right, maybe. But it was just a little off.”
Jenny stroked the notebook she had just taken out.
“This notebook was a gift from my older brother. Charlotte deduced my brother’s drinking habit from the stains left on it, the initials engraved on the cover, and the trembling handwriting inside.”
“But that deduction would have been wrong. Miss Jenny's older brother has overcome the pain of the past and risen again.”
“How did you know?”
She looked at me with surprise.
I shrugged.
“There’s a bookmark in it that looks much newer than the notebook itself. Did your brother give it to you?”
“…That’s right. You’re very Charlotte-like.”
“That’s basic.”
Of course, I wasn’t deducing things from scratch like Charlotte would, without knowing anything.
It was more like I already knew the answer and fit the evidence around it.
I just didn’t feel the need to say that out loud here.
“Shall we continue, then?”
“Did Charlotte enjoy this board game too?”
“Yes.”
“Then can I assume that this friend who just appeared… Sherry, was acting the way Charlotte did when she played?”
“Well. There’s no absolute right answer in this game.”
Even so, it was fair to say that this character named Sherry was Charlotte.
That was because I’d simply copied the stats and personality of the character Charlotte usually played.
“But why Charlotte, all of a sudden?”
“Do you think she’d get caught up in something like this?”
“I guess not.”
Jenny seemed to accept that.
For the record, Sherry’s appearance here was necessary.
Since Jenny was a TRPG beginner, after all.
To keep things running smoothly, an NPC like this needed to be added.
“Then let’s keep going.”
*
After Sherry appeared.
Only then did Jenny seem able to focus on the TRPG in earnest.
“I learned for the first time that a corpse that died and then burned is different from a corpse that burned to death. Does Charlotte know this too?”
“I told her, so of course she knows. For the record, that knowledge came in handy in this session.”
Though she did break character from time to time.
I decided to let it slide because she was a TRPG beginner.
After that, Jenny and Charlotte solved the case together within the board game.
“You and Sherry have solved your first case. Sherry seems to like you. She wants to take you on as her assistant. Do you accept her offer?”
“Do I need to roll the dice to find out?”
I shook my head.
“That’s for you to decide, Miss Jenny. You didn’t leave making friends in real life to chance every time, did you?”
“….”
For a moment, Jenny’s expression darkened.
But only for a moment.
She nodded and chose to become Sherry’s assistant.
“All right. I’d like to stay with Miss Sherry from now on.”
“Good. Then shall we wrap up this session here?”
Snap.
With a snap of my fingers, the drawings on the board were quickly erased.
It was a light application of transcription magic.
And basic magic at that.
“What do you think, Miss Jenny?”
“About what?”
“While playing this game, do you still think everything is decided by luck?”
Jenny's expression turned complicated at that.
I couldn’t read minds, but...
If I had to guess, she looked exasperated.
“Wouldn’t playing a game like this make you think everything is decided by luck even more?”
“Sorry. It looks like my intent didn’t come across as well as I thought.”
“If you’re about to say something like, ‘If you try hard enough, even heaven will be moved,’ you’d better stop.”
There was a thorny edge to her words.
I wasn’t the only one who felt it; Jenny also flinched and quickly apologized.
“I’m sorry. I fight with my family about this sort of thing a lot, so I reacted a little too sharply.”
I shook my head.
“Not at all. I didn’t propose this game because I meant to deny luck outright.”
After all, I myself had benefited a great deal from the power of the misunderstanding trope.
Wouldn’t it be shameless for me to deny the power of luck?
So what I wanted to say through this game was a little different.
“I only mean that, even so, we still have to keep trying, preparing, and rolling the dice.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me give you an example. Miss Sherry’s Observation is 15. She succeeded at most of her observations in this session. If that number had been lower, would she have succeeded so often?”
“Wouldn’t that talent be luck too?”
“Miss Sherry’s Observation wasn’t much different from yours at the start, Miss Jenny. She raised it to 15 with bonuses earned through repeated sessions.”
“….”
Jenny fell silent.
The moment I saw that, I decided the timing was right and got to the point.
“You said earlier that Charlotte explains every coincidence with logic, right?”
“I did.”
“But in truth, that isn’t all that different from luck either.”
Jenny knitted her brows.
As if I’d insulted her dearest friend.
I set aside the thought that she had a good friend.
And continued my explanation.
“Contrary to popular belief, deduction isn’t a perfect logical system. It’s just a series of dart throws aimed at the most probable target.”
Diagnosis and deduction.
At their core, the two are not that different.
You’re coughing and running a fever?
Then it’s probably an infectious disease.
If not, then too bad.
There’s discolored dirt on your shoes?
Then you probably went to Limbus Pit.
If not, then too bad.
In that sense, the two are hardly any different.
“What if you’re wrong?”
“You keep in mind how to quickly switch to another line of reasoning, and then put it into practice.”
Of course, because it’s all probability, you can be wrong.
Not a cold?
Then shall we suspect lymphoma?
Not Limbus Pit?
Then shall we suspect the wizard’s workshop?
That’s why every diagnosis and deduction also comes with a Plan B, C, and D.
“It’s impossible, even for me or Charlotte, to be right from the very beginning every time. We simply bet on the likeliest possibility first, and if we find contradictions, we prepare to go back to the start.”
“Then…”
“Yes. Maybe, as you think, Miss Jenny, we’re not perfectly logical people after all.”
It was a common misconception.
People think detectives and doctors are like gears, with logic clicking neatly into place one by one.
But no matter how brilliant a doctor or detective is,
there are far too many things you can’t know until you crack open the belly or catch the culprit.
And yet, the reason we keep succeeding,
“is that we keep preparing and making efforts to dodge failure as much as possible, and to increase the odds of luck coming our way.”
It’s because we spare no effort to raise that possibility.
We build up our Observation in everyday life, and study hard every day.
All of that is to raise the success rate; it isn’t a guarantee that we’ll always succeed.
But Jenny didn’t accept that easily.
“Still, in the end, doesn’t luck decide the outcome?”
“Then let’s change the example a little. How many mistakes did Sherry make in this session?”
“I don’t remember exactly how many, but it was few enough to count on one hand.”
“Did she give up even once?”
Jenny’s eyes wavered.
She reluctantly shook her head.
“That’s right. Sometimes misfortune comes in life. Sometimes you roll a 1 on the dice. But if you keep rolling, you can still finish a session in the end.”
“That one stroke of bad luck can be enough to keep someone from ever standing up again.”
That was true.
I’d gotten a fumble in my past life too, after all (*the worst-case result when the die lands on 1), and was immediately reincarnated into another world.
But I also thought that if you changed your perspective, you could see even that differently.
“Then we should be even prouder of standing where we are now. With everything we’ve built up so far, we’ve kept securing chances to roll the dice, and we still haven’t given up.”
Jenny’s hand stopped.
I took the small cube from her hand and rolled it between my fingers.
“Miss Jenny. I won’t be so presumptuous as to say I can comfort you for everything you’ve been through. But I did want to say this much.”
Jenny’s attitude during the meal just now.
And if I combined that with what I’d heard personally from Charlotte,
Jenny couldn’t find any reason to feel happy about the good fortune she enjoyed because of the misfortunes of her past.
If every decision she made was being manipulated by fate.
If she was nothing more than a puppet of destiny.
Then whatever she did would feel meaningless—that kind of fatalistic helplessness.
That was why I wanted to fix that.
“Even if fate decides many things, what you do with that luck is your choice, Miss Jenny. At the very least, we’re not perfect puppets of destiny.”
Of course, saying this might be a little hypocritical of me.
In a sense, I too was riding on the greatest stroke of luck there was: being mistaken for someone else.
But I had my own argument as well.
‘For water to come out of a pump, you need to prime it first.’
I had made efforts too, and it was I who chose what to do with that luck.
Even if fate had massively favored me, I could still say I hadn’t been tossed around by it.
“So please, Miss Jenny, enjoy the happiness you have now with your head held high. To start… yes. How about beginning by thinking about what you can do with the small miracles written in that notebook?”
“….”
Jenny stared straight at me.
With eyes that showed no emotion.
The two of us stared silently at each other for a while.
Jenny was the first to look away.
“…Charlotte would fall for you.”
“Huh?”
“Thank you for looking out for me, Sir Julian. It was a helpful time.”
Jenny stood up with a smile.
The pessimistic, somehow enlightened air she’d shown at dinner was no longer there.
“Would it be all right if I borrowed this board? I’d like to try it with Charlotte in my room.”
“Take it. I can’t use it alone anyway.”
“Thank you, Sir Julian.”
Jenny bundled up the TRPG gear and gave a small bow.
After Jenny left the room,
Perisia appeared quietly from the shadowed corner of the room.
“…Why did you go to such lengths to look after her?”
“Well, she’s my fiancée’s only friend.”
If Jenny doesn't play with her, Charlotte has no one to play with.
With social skills like that, who would be her friend?
But it seemed Perisia interpreted my words differently.
“You’re kind, Sir Julian.”
“It’s embarrassing to say, but I try to be kind to everyone within my reach.”
“Because of that, my own kind was saved, so I think that kindness is wonderful as well.”
Bow.
Lowering her head, Perisia vanished back into the shadows.
For the record, she didn’t actually vanish into the shadows.
I’d heard before that it was an adaptation of a chameleon’s camouflage.
I didn’t really remember the exact mechanism, since it wasn’t my area of expertise.
With that thought, I tidied up the traces of the TRPG session.
***
After parting ways with Julian,
Jenny immediately bundled up the dice and rulebooks needed for TRPG and headed to the dormitory.
After returning to the dorm and studying the rulebook,
Charlotte, who had solved the case, came into the room.
“Hm, what’s this, Jenny?”
“A gift from your fiancé.”
“You met alone?”
“Yeah. He even gave me this gift so we could play together.”
Thud.
Jenny spoke as she closed the rulebook.
“I’m going to reconstruct the cases you solved and turn them into a game like this. I think it’d be fun to play with the other students.”
“Are you thinking of becoming the game master, Jenny?”
“Probably, yeah?”
“Then may I try it out once?”
“Sure. I just made a session, so let’s give it a try.”
And so Jenny’s first time as a game master began.
Their session went on late into the night.
“Jenny. Why is my fiancé the mastermind?”
“What am I supposed to do? That’s how the dice came up.”
“Then why do I have to die with him? At that level, my fiancé could easily subdue me.”
“Then you should roll better dice. And stop breaking RP.”
And that night,
a new note was added to Jenny’s notebook.
— <This wasn’t the first case Charlotte and I had handled, but from this day onward, I decided to record her exploits in writing. Imperial Year 1050. October 4th entry.>