First Round: Reawakening

It was the next day. Nao looked like she didn't sleep at all, with dark eye circles. Akiyama looked as relaxed as ever. Wan Ting and Sakiko had got along well and they stayed up all night chatting with one another. Yukina was dressed in another tracksuit, silver this time. Everyone gathered in the foyer, filling out a form of their group.

"I will now announce the group. The group of air: Akiyama-sama, Kanzaki-sama, Sakiko-sama, Tay-sama, Takeda-same. The group of land: Harimoto-sama, Muraji-sama (a teenage boy), Kimura-sama, Kenneth-sama (the model), Sean-sama (the businessman). The group of water: Yokoya-sama, Katsuragi-sama, Fukunaga-sama, Shirokure-sama (the bimbotic high-school girl), Lee-sama (the drunkard). Now, everyone will receive some tools to play the game."

Nao looked as a dealer in black arrived to their table with a yellow box in tow. She opened the lid and took out 5 yellow cards. Each card had a name and on the back is a design of an animal of flight. She could see that the land group had green cards and the water group had blue cards, but that's about it. Her own card had her name in Katakana and it contains a yellow canary bird. Akiyama's had a golden eagle.

"Cool, mine is a bumblebee!" Sakiko squealed.

"By the way, why are the players so young and noisy?" Fukunaga complained.

"It's human nature to lie, even the young ones, is it not? Besides, it's easier to win money from them." Lira said.

"Mine is a butterfly!" Wan Ting said excitedly.

"I will now announce the rules of the game. Each of you have a card, and each card contains 5 million from the start. Each person must buy jewels. There is a machine in the room at the back and only 1 person can enter it. Everyone must enter it within 1 hour, and like the previous Final Stage game, you must enter before you use the card. However, the card is necessary to open the door. You will use the card to choose which box of jewels to buy. Only 1 box can be bought per round, you can try to buy again but only the first time counts. With the card, you can check how many jewels you have. At the 10th round, everyone's amount of jewels will be revealed. There are 15 rounds.

There are 5 types of boxes available in infinite quantities. The $100 thousand is the cheapest, $500 thousand is the most expensive. Each jewel stands for $10 000, but the boxes with the price might have less or more jewels than stated, the prices are rough estimates. The total cost will be split among the members according to a chart.

At the end of the game, everyone must return 5 million dollars in cash or jewels. The player with the most number of jewels win. Don't worry, jewels can be auctioned off starting from the 10th round. The winning group (most number of jewels) gets additional box of 50 jewels to be split as they wish. The minimum number of jewels to pass is 150. If you don't pass, you don't proceed to the next game. That is the ultimate goal: regardless of debts, the group with overall most jewels and the person with the most jewels can advance."

"It's easy! Everyone, let's all choose the cheapest box, since it will be free if we do that."

"There is no reason why anyone would oppose your plan, except that the other groups will definitely get more money than us and advance to the next round, since that is the ultimate goal," Yukina said.

"Yeah, I have already spent 1 million dollars from the first game into rebuilding my orphanage—I don't have any money left!" Sakiko sobbed.

"Me too. I participated in the game because I needed to pay off my student loan," Wan Ting said, consoling Sakiko.

"Everyone, I will be in charge of using all your cards." Yokoya announced. Katsuragi and Fukunaga looked slightly put off. Only the drunkard and the bimbo looked nonchalant.

There is no way everyone in this group can advance—look at the bimbo and the drunkard! It's every man for himself. I would sooner die than trust Fukunaga. Yokoya thought.

"Now, I will ask the leaders of each group to come and play scissors paper stone to determine the order in which they enter the room." Lira announced.

Akiyama, Muraji (surprisingly not Hashimoto) and Fukunaga came. Fukunaga postured aggressively. Muraji won. Then Akiyama won.

So, one by one, Harimoto's group went in. After that, they all apparently handed their cards to Harimoto.

"Looks like he's got new followers," Nao said.

"As long as Kimura is still with Harimoto, he has nothing to lose," Akiyama observed.

Next up is Akiyama's group. Everyone vowed to give the card to Nao, to buy the cheapest box for free.

Anyway, after everyone has finished, the results of each group's debt is shown on the screen. As expected, Harimoto's group had incurred a 2.2 million debt, most likely two expensive box and 3 next expensive box. The debt will be 0.44 million for each player. Yokoya's group, however, had a WHOPPING 7.5 million debt, meaning everybody secretly bought the most expensive box, and everyone pays 1.5million!

"What is the meaning of this!" Fukunaga grabbed the collar of Lee, who laughed drunkenly.

"Oh, you're not supposed to press the shiny button? Sorry, my fault." Momoka Shirokure, the bimbo laughed unabashedly.

"Why should only Katsuragi and Yokoya get the most expensive box, anyway," Fukunaga grumbled.

Nao's group incurred 0 debt because everyone chose the cheapest box.

"Akiyama-san, how many jewels do we have?" Nao asked.

"Not very good. Nao's box only had 2 gems, mine had 8, Yukina's had 4, Sakiko's had 2 and Wan Ting's had 1 only, a total of 17 gems." Akiyama said.

"That's not good, we need 150 jewels EACH to pass, as well as being in the richest group," Nao said worriedly.

"So that means we can't stick with our strategy of buying the cheapest box after all. Because jewels are more important than money, in this game," Yukina said somberly.

Does Akiyama have a winning strategy? Find out in the next round!

Tallies:

Air: Akiyama: 8 gems, 5 million. Nao: 2 gems, 5 million. Yukina: 4 gems, 5 million. Sakiko: 2 gems, 5 million. Wan Ting: 1 gem, 5 million.

Water: Yokoya: 57 gems, 3.5 million. Katsuragi: 53 gems, 3.5 million. Fukunaga: 52 gems, 3.5 million. Momoka: 53 gems, 3.5 million. Lee: 49 gems, 3.5 million.