Gods’ Games We Play, Vol. 5, page 16
“From my perspective…” The fake Fay pointed to the badge on his chest. “I want you to use Truth Touch on me. There are two of me here. It would be best if one of you—I don’t care if it’s Pearl or Nel—can prove which of me is right about things.”
“I agree! It would be really heartening to know which Fay is the real one!”
“That’s certainly true!” said Nel A, apparently already convinced. Raring to go, she wheeled—on Fay A. “I’m going to touch Master Fay A! Sure you want me to call you the real thing?”
“Naturally.”
At that moment—precisely because he had seen all of it play out before his eyes—
Fay saw the god’s trick.
“That’s it! Nel, wait!”
“Wha—?”
Fay grabbed her wrist before she could move. “This is exactly what Poseidon wants. She’s trying to eliminate you, the real you, here and now.”
“What do you mean?” Nel A said, frowning. It was only natural. From her perspective, he (Fay B) was the fake, and she was understandably wary of a fake suddenly grabbing her hand.
“When your Truth Touch fails on Fay A, the real Nel—you—will disappear. And then what do you think happens?”
“I’m hoping you can tell me.”
“The worst thing that could occur in these circumstances is that the real you disappears and the fake Nel stays behind.”
“…?” Nel gave him another questioning look. She could hardly grasp how important she was at this moment on some level because she herself was the key.
“You’re the fastest runner here, Nel, and if only the fake you is left, then the rest of us lose. When the other Nel sets off for that finish line, none of us is ever going to catch her.”
“…!” Nel gasped.
“This is a simple pattern breakdown. From your perspective, if you use Truth Touch on Fay A, what happens?”
A Truth Touch by Nel (real) has one of four outcomes:
1. Touch Fay A (real) and say, “You’re real!”: Both the real Nel and real Fay remain.
2. Touch Fay A (real) and say, “You’re fake!”: The real Nel disappears, leaving only the fake Nel.
3. Touch Fay A (fake) and say, “You’re real!”: The real Nel disappears, leaving only the fake Nel.
4. Touch Fay A (fake) and say, “You’re fake!”: Both the real Nel and real Fay remain.
This was a Truth Touch trap, set by the god to get rid of the real Nel. That was the whole point.
“The same logic would have applied to Leshea—if the real Leshea had still been around, she could have forced her way to the goal. So Poseidon came up with a trick to get her out of the way first. She led me into making Leshea disappear, so that everyone would start to doubt me.”
The god’s plot was to eliminate the real Leshea and the real Nel from play.
Then it would be checkmate. Fay (real) and Pearl (real) would have no hope of stopping the fake Nel from racing for the goal.
“…………There’s some logic to what you’re saying,” said Nel A—the real one. She slowly drew her hand away from Fay A, no longer about to give him the Truth Touch. “Master Fay B… The truth is, I still think Master A is the real one. If you claim I’m wrong about that, then I’m giving you one more chance to prove your innocence.”
“I hear you. This time there’s no mistaking it.”
He let go of Nel’s wrist, then pointed at Nel B and Fay A.
“These two are the fakes. The other two were already eliminated by Truth Touch.”
Fay’s declaration shocked the remaining inhabitants of Atlantis, the Ocean Maze. But the most violent reaction of all came from the fake Nel B.
“I—I’m the real thing! Pearl, you must believe me!”
Pearl hadn’t been there when they found out Nel B was the fake. She didn’t know which of them, Nel A or B, was fake, so maybe the false Nel thought she could talk the other girl around.
“And you, Master Fay B!” she went on. “You say I’m the fake—but how can you prove that you’re real? And if you say Truth Touch, how is that situation any different from what Master Fay A suggested?”
“Of course I’m not going to say Truth Touch. There’s another way,” Fay said.
Everyone there gasped—even the god’s fakes.
“I think the real players here are Pearl B and Nel A. I have a question for them. What percentage chance do you think there actually is of winning this game?”
“Huh?” Pearl said. “Uh, well… You have to correctly guess who’s real and who’s fake among eight people, so I guess it would be a fifty percent chance to the fourth power?”
“N-no! You know whether you yourself are real, so it’s only fifty percent to the third power!” Nel said.
“The real answer is fifty percent, plain and simple,” Fay told them. There was a one-in-two chance of victory. He turned to the real Pearl and Nel and held up two fingers. “When you think about it, all you really need to do in this game is get all eight players together and use Truth Touch systematically. You’ll be left with two people whose reality you don’t know. After that, even relying completely on luck, the human players will win one out of every two times. In other words, you can play this game as a pure gamble.”
However…
Would a god ever accept such a tepid contest?
“Instead, you think, I want this game to be a little more exciting. Right?” This time Fay turned to the fake Fay and the fake Nel.
“So, Poseidon…or maybe I should say, Li’l Poseidon. You did a brilliant job of taking a game of luck and turning it into a game of psychological warfare. I have to admit, I never saw it coming.” He jerked his thumb at himself. “Your trick, your stratagem, was to confuse one of the real players. Make them believe something that wasn’t true. And the only person here who’s made that kind of mistake is me, Fay B. Which means I must be real.”
Only he had misapprehended Nel A and B. Which meant, reasoning backward, that he could confidently say he was real.
“The god needed to fool the real players so that they would take one another out. But by the same token, it means any person who was fooled is by definition real. And the only one who was obviously tricked here was me myself. There’s your proof.”
“I admit, it’s very much like the real Master Fay to find a way to explain things that doesn’t rely on the most obvious features of the game,” the real Nel said slowly. “But that still leaves us with the biggest problem: One of the real players has to reach the finish line first.”
Among the five of them standing there, there was no one whom all of them could agree to be absolutely, unquestionably the real thing.
From Pearl’s perspective, it was impossible to judge between Nels A and B.
For both her and the Nels, the same was true of Fays A and B.
And further from the Nels’ perspective, the veracity of Pearl B was impossible to be certain of.
So which of the five of them should make for the finish line first?
This was the final challenge.
It had seemed like the only way to resolve it was to use Truth Touch…until Fay pointed toward the goal. “Nel, Pearl,” he said, turning to them. “Do you know the secret for always coming in first in a marathon?”
2
The human-beast god Minotaur stood at the finish line of the Ocean Maze Atlantis. Behind her were Lesheas A and B and Pearl A, removed from the game by a mistaken Truth Touch.
Normally, being “out” of one of the gods’ games meant being returned to the human world, but this game was an exception. Here, everyone awaited the judgment of truth after the finish line was crossed—the final challenge with which the players were confronted once all eight of them were together.
“Oh, look! Look there! Heeeey!” Minotaur waved a big racing flag.
Now, who was in front? Lesheas A and B and Pearl A all watched with bated breath…and then all of them gasped, their eyes going wide.
They heard five sets of footsteps, and five people rounded the final corner at the exact same time, walking abreast.
“Oooh! I get it!” Minotaur stopped waving her flag and grinned broadly. “The five of them all cross the finish line together and in hand. If they don’t know who’s real and who isn’t, then they can all reach the finish line at once!”
Precisely.
Fay’s suggestion for how to “always come in first” was to hold hands and walk side by side.
The order was this:
Nel A (?)—Nel B (?)—Pearl B (?)—Fay B (real)—Fay A (fake)
For one thing, it was impossible to check whether the Nels and Fays were real or not. Another important point was that the fakes couldn’t eliminate the real players. So long as the real players kept choosing to do nothing, the fakes couldn’t use Truth Touch to cause havoc.
“Good thinking! By holding hands, not only can they all make the finish line at once, but the real players can keep an eye on the fake ones right up to the moment they reach the goal!” said Minotaur.
As the five players reached the finish line tape together, there was a burst of confetti.
“Congratulations! I acknowledge that you’ve met the first victory condition!” Minotaur applauded unabashedly. “Now it’s time for the judgment of truth! In the spirit of the victory conditions, only a human may answer, and only one of them may do so. Who’s going to give the answers?”
“I am.”
The declaration to the god of who would represent the eight players standing at the finish line came from Fay—who was pointing at the B badge on his chest.
“Only a human can give the answers about who’s real and who’s fake, and I, Fay B, have proven that I’m real. Right?”
At that moment, there was a minor explosion. Fay A convulsed, and a girl—in fact, a god—with a trident burst into view. “Hmph!” she said. “All right, I’ll allow it! Very well. Begin the judgment of truth!”
“You heard her. Okay if I handle this?” Fay looked around at the two Lesheas, the two Pearls, and the two Nels.
““Sure, go for it!”” both Lesheas said in unison.
““Y-yeah, of course! I never would have guessed B was the real Fay…,”” the Pearls answered together.
““Mm-hmm! I wasn’t able to tell which Master Fay was which even to the bitter end. But now that I know you’re the real thing, how could I ever object?!”” the two Nels replied in harmony.
The real and the fake players said the same thing at exactly the same time. Even with the finish line reached, they remained perfect copies, impossible to distinguish from their words or actions alone.
That meant the only way to tell which was which was by reviewing what had happened in Atlantis.
“First things first. I can say for myself that Fay B is the real player, which makes his counterpart, Fay A, the fake. Everyone good with that?”
No one raised any objections. Even Poseidon had already thrown off the guise of Fay A.
“I can also confirm Leshea straight off,” Fay said. “I saw Pearl A use Truth Touch on Leshea B and cause her to disappear, so I know the real one is Leshea A.”
“Going well so far!” Leshea B disappeared, and a second Poseidon popped out in her place. Fay had expected that, of course, but the Nels, who hadn’t been sure whether Leshea was the real thing, backed up in surprise. “Here’s where the fun begins!” The deity leveled her trident at Fay. “Those four were obvious. Truth Touch gave you the answers. But you’ll have to do the rest yourself!”
Poseidon wasn’t taunting him; it was a simple fact. The true battle of wits started now. The two Pearls and the two Nels were left. One pair who hadn’t been tested at all by Truth Touch, and one pair who had—but about whom there was still doubt.
“Let’s move on to Nel,” Fay said, turning his gaze on the black-haired girls. Nels A and B looked absolutely identical, and they both sucked in a breath when he said that. “Knowing which one is real isn’t actually a problem—because the real Leshea was kind enough to test them with Truth Touch.”
“If Nel A is the fake, then you must be the real thing, right?”
Truth Touch failed. As Nel B is the fake…
Truth Touch judged automatically, and if they could trust that judgment, then they already had their answer.
“Nel A is the real thing, and Nel B is the fake. That much is solid. There’s just one thing…”
Fay deliberately chose not to finish his thought aloud.
There was just one thing: Which Nel was which had been the opposite of what Fay had predicted. It had caused him to lead Leshea into a mistaken choice. That was the god’s real strategy, and the trick Fay was going to have to expose. Starting now.
“Poseidon,” he said to the god still in the form of Nel B. “I know who you really are, so why haven’t you gone back to the god’s body yet?”
Nel B caught her breath.
“You don’t want to, do you? Because that would undermine your strategy. A ploy that covers two things: the reason I was wrong about which Nel was real, and which Pearl is the real one.”
He turned to the twin Pearls and studied the golden-haired girls, one with an A badge on her chest, the other with a B. On them, and them alone, no one had used Truth Touch the entire time.
Leshea and Nel won’t know. I’m the only one who saw all the gimmicks at play. So I have to be the one to answer this.
Which was the real Pearl, and which was the fake?
“My first thought was, who acted like the real Pearl? You would have to say it was Pearl A, who revealed that Leshea B was fake by using Truth Touch. On the other hand, Pearl B didn’t miss a single bit of information that might be useful to the real players.”
Pearl B gasped, and her shoulders shook. Meanwhile, Pearl A smiled earnestly. “Y-yes, Fay, of course! We were together the whole time, weren’t we?”
But Fay wasn’t done.
“Next angle: Who deliberately behaved suspiciously? Let’s be honest—everyone in this game did stuff that made them look questionable. Even me. I caused Leshea to Truth Touch herself right out of the game. But that was because I was tricked. The important point is who tricked me and when.”
In fact, all of them had been taken in. Once they had been suckered by the god’s plan, the finger-pointing started, and then there had nearly—as the name of the game suggested—been none.
“I said to the real Leshea that I thought there was a ‘high probability’ that Nel A was the fake. That’s because Pearl said this to me.…” Fay continued,
“Do you think I should use Truth Touch on her? If I say, ‘You’re real,’ and disappear, that will prove Nel is a fake!”
And Pearl A had, in fact, disappeared.
“I trusted that, and assumed Nel A was the fake, which is what I told Leshea. And we saw what happened…”
“N-now, wait just a second!” Pearl A burst in. “There’s something fishy here! I used Truth Touch, just like I said I would! The result was I failed, but I had faith that that would still help you, Fay!”
“What do you think, Nel? Oh, I’m asking the real one, Nel A.”
Nel caught her breath. “I-it’s indeed true that I’m the real Nel…” She looked from one of the Pearls to the other, and finally, in a small, uncertain voice, she said, “Um… One thing still confuses me. If it’s true what you say, that Pearl A said, ‘You’re real,’ as she performed the Touch, then because I am real, she shouldn’t have disappeared, should she?”
“Bingo.”
“Wha…?”
“You said it yourself, Nel. You didn’t know what Pearl said when she approached you to use Truth Touch. You claimed she was talking too fast.”
“…Ah?!”
Yes: This was the true face of the god’s second stratagem.
Fay turned toward the Pearl with the A badge.
“Time to compare answers, Pearl—or should I say, Li’l ’Don?”
She looked at him like a frightened puppy, begging him not to do this… No. Rather, the god acted as if Pearl were doing these things.
“You didn’t say, ‘You’re real,’ and perform Truth Touch. You said, ‘You’re fake,’ and then did it, right?”
It had been a complete logical blind spot for him: There was no rule that said anyone else had to hear you make the Truth Touch declaration. It would have worked just as well if you said it quietly to yourself.
“You sure were thorough. You—and let’s be clear, I mean the god—used the Swapping Orb to make sure I was somewhere else entirely. Just so there was no way I could hear what you said, right?”
Everything had gone exactly according to the god’s calculations.
“Fay—you just need to use this orb to change places with Nel A. Please, go to the head of the field!”
Pearl A and Nel A had met up. Fay had been sent far away, so there was no danger of him seeing (or rather, hearing) what Pearl did. Once she was sure that it was just her and Nel, she performed Truth Touch while making the opposite of the declaration she had said she would make.
That’s why I was thrown off—because I was convinced Pearl had used Truth Touch while saying “You’re real.”
Leshea had helped rescue him, too. If he himself, instead of Leshea, had performed the Truth Touch on Nel B, there would have been no one left in the game who could get at the truth of the matter.
“Another thing. This was just divine stratagem number two. The real danger was from stratagem number one.” Fay cast a look around at everyone standing there. He was greeted by a mix of expressions of confusion and of curiosity. “When did this stratagem start? It was because I believed what Pearl A said that I started to doubt the real Nel. Ultimately, I accepted almost unconsciously that Pearl A must be real. And the trap the god set to make sure I thought that was that very first Truth Touch.”
“And so—touch! You’re a fake!”
Truth Touch successful! As Leshea B is the fake, she is removed from the game.
When explaining the rules, Minotaur had said, “There’s no combination in which Truth Touch is advantageous for a fake to initiate.”
