"You are Shinomiya Kaguya, the Holy Grail's holder, right?"
Asakura ignored Fujiwara Chika, who was currently crawling and squirming in the shadows not far away, but couldn't make any progress because the tatami was too slippery. He simply sat down opposite Shinomiya Kaguya with a grand air.
"Let's play a game."
Shinomiya Kaguya said nothing, only sticking the famous painting "The Cancer of the World" onto the wall.
Asakura wasn't discouraged. He took out the last remaining World Cup trophy ornament from his pocket and placed it on the tatami mat.
Sure enough, this sole seedling from the Holy Grail immediately attracted Shinomiya Kaguya's attention.
She resettled herself in front of Asakura and asked in an indifferent tone, "What do you want to play?"
Asakura immediately understood.
Although Shinomiya Kaguya still seemed to be acting on her own consciousness, in reality, her self-awareness was beginning to thin. Was the Holy Grail's power gradually stealing her self-awareness? After all, the girl herself certainly couldn't recognize the Holy Grail at a glance; only the power of the Holy Grail could sense each other… It was precisely because of this that there would be this kind of mutual attraction between similar entities.
"Since you won that Holy Grail by playing Concentration, then let's decide the winner with Concentration."
Asakura gently reached out, and about twenty small cardboard boxes landed on the tatami mat, each box containing an unopened deck of playing cards.
Concentration, also known as Memory, involves shuffling two identical decks of cards and laying them out face down. Depending on the difficulty, players are given a few seconds to tens of seconds to memorize the positions of the cards. Then the cards are flipped face down, and two players take turns flipping. As long as two identical cards are flipped at once, the player can continue. If different cards are flipped, they are flipped back face down, and the next player takes their turn. This continues until all cards have been flipped, and the player with the higher score wins.
However, Asakura and Shinomiya Kaguya were clearly not normal players, so the rules would naturally change a bit.
"Card memorization time is fifteen seconds. We'll both take turns flipping all the cards. If there's any mistake, it's an immediate loss. If both of us succeed, we'll add two more decks, playing with four decks, and so on. How about it?"
"I want to check the card backs."
"No problem."
Asakura pushed all the decks of cards to Shinomiya Kaguya.
He wasn't worried that she would find anything amiss, because these playing cards were all legitimate decks; he had no intention of playing any tricks with them.
After Shinomiya Kaguya checked and found no issues, their game began.
Just as Fujiwara Chika had said, Shinomiya Kaguya was clearly someone with excellent memorization skills. She easily completed a normal game of Concentration without much effort.
Asakura also completed it with ease, though his movements were much slower than Shinomiya Kaguya's.
When the number of decks increased to four, a total of 216 cards, Shinomiya Kaguya's movements seemed to slow down slightly, while Asakura still maintained his rhythm and completed it unhurriedly.
Next were six decks, 324 cards.
Shinomiya Kaguya's movements became even slower, and during this time, there seemed to be occasional uncertain movements, while Asakura still unhurriedly completed the card flipping.
Eight decks, 432 cards.
The mere fifteen seconds of memorization time was clearly insufficient. Cold sweat began to bead on Shinomiya Kaguya's forehead, but she still made no mistakes. However, this time, the card flipping took far longer than the total time of the previous three attempts combined.
In contrast, although Asakura never flipped cards particularly quickly from start to finish, his rhythm never changed, and he completed the Concentration game with eight decks quite effortlessly.
"Is Miss Shinomiya already giving up?"
As Shinomiya Kaguya silently shuffled the cards, Asakura suddenly said, "Just in case, I brought a full twenty-four decks this time. We're only a third of the way through."
"What do you want to say?"
Shinomiya Kaguya stared at Asakura, asking in a cold tone.
"All-in… it seems a bit strange to use it here, but I'm also getting a bit tired of continuing like this—" Asakura said with a smile, "Let's decide it in one go, 24 decks, 1296 cards."
"Okay, but you go first."
Shinomiya Kaguya said unhurriedly.
"As you wish."
Asakura opened all the boxes and watched the girl clumsily shuffle the cards, laying all of them out on the floor.
Fortunately, as the owner of this space, she had a certain degree of control over it, otherwise just flipping all these cards over would be a huge project—having to lie on the floor with her butt sticking up to flip each card would be too undignified.
Asakura quickly started flipping cards.
Even with the rigorous training of the college entrance examination in his previous life, Asakura wasn't particularly outstanding in terms of memory, so it was naturally impossible for him to memorize the positions of over a thousand cards in just fifteen seconds.
But it didn't matter, just as he said, he had a surefire way to win if he played Concentration.
In fact, he didn't even bother memorizing the cards during those fifteen seconds.
Magic from 'Limited Infinity' was extracted and poured into his eyes, activating 'Future Vision'.
In the Future Vision one second later, he flipped two cards, different suits, failed.
Reopen Future Vision.
In the Future Vision one second later, he flipped two cards, different numbers, failed.
Reopen Future Vision…
…
Only after several reopens (that is) showed cards with the same suit and number would Asakura actually flip those two cards, and then continue to stare blankly at a pile of card backs…
Anyway, he only stipulated a 15-second memorization time, and didn't limit the flipping time. As long as the flipped cards correctly matched, it didn't matter how long it took.
Thus, under Shinomiya Kaguya's incredulous gaze, Asakura easily completed the Concentration game with 1296 cards.
"You definitely cheated."
She looked at Asakura with sharp eyes.
"You have no evidence—" Asakura replied smoothly, "Innocent until proven guilty."
The girl stared intently at the backs of the playing cards, frantically trying to figure out how he cheated.
Were there any markings on the back of the cards? No, she had checked and found no markings.
Were there slight differences in the outlines of different cards? No, there didn't seem to be any problem with that either.
Was it a perfume tactic, where perfume was sprinkled on the cards? But she couldn't smell anything except the scent of tatami.
Then did he tamper with the cards when shuffling? But this time she shuffled them herself…
"Just for the record—" Asakura snapped his fingers, bringing the girl back to her senses: "Fujiwara Chika is almost here. You wouldn't want to renege on your word in front of her, would you?"
Shinomiya Kaguya's face distorted.
Indeed, if it was just reneging by accusing an obviously skilled stranger of cheating, psychologically it might not be a problem. But if it was reneging in front of Fujiwara Chika, whom she subtly looked down upon but also acknowledged as a friend, Shinomiya Kaguya felt she couldn't afford to lose face…
She looked at Asakura, who was shuffling the cards, and let out a heavy sigh.
"I concede."