Miyabi Nagumo reached out and rummaged through the pile of fragments.
The first one. Correct.
The second one. Correct.
The twelfth...
Nagumo's fingers stopped in midair.
His gaze lingered on one fragment for a full five seconds.
"Damn it..."
He cursed under his breath. His fingers trembled almost imperceptibly, but in the end, he flipped it over.
It was... the Spade 5.
"Wrong."
Nagumo's pupils contracted sharply.
He'd actually gotten it wrong?
Over the next few minutes,
Ishikura tried again and got it wrong again.
Nagumo tried to correct his memory, but his earlier miscalculation of the coordinates triggered a chain reaction, and he flipped over another incorrect fragment.
The two of them seemed caught in some kind of curse, making four wrong moves in a row.
Each time they flipped over the wrong card, they had to turn it face down again. That should have been a chance to improve their memory, but to their utterly exhausted minds, it only added more details to keep track of.
At last,
perhaps fate had finally taken pity on that poor third-year student, or perhaps Ishikura had just gotten lucky.
After Nagumo's fourth mistake, Ishikura found all the Queens outside the box and correctly guessed the position of one of the fragments inside it.
The third round ended.
Loser: Miyabi Nagumo.
For a moment, the expression on Nagumo's face was indescribable.
He stared fiercely at the fragments on the floor, grinding his teeth.
But the game didn't stop.
Kazehara Tetsu gave him no chance to catch his breath.
The fourth round.
The fifth round.
The sixth round.
As time went on, this high-intensity battle of wits completely wore down everyone's defenses.
Ishikura had given up thinking altogether.
Nagumo was still holding on, displaying a willpower far beyond that of an ordinary