Chapter 3: The Rules Explained

But before that, let's rewind a bit to know what happened to me before I got here, to the time that he saved me from death, precisely ten or five minutes ago.

𝐅𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤

After I met with Raika-san, I continued walking on my own path, while thinking about what I should do next, and where I will sleep for the night.

With night lamps starting to flickered with its dim lighted light on the side of the streets, accompanying the dusk winds that started to get calmer and calmer.

As the wind breeze the leaves of the trees were planted along the main road, brushing against each other to create the sounds of a rattling tree to block the distant screams that still happen even though it's already dark, and at this point I'm too tired to even close my ears.

And suddenly, a threat just came to me without me even noticing anything was amiss, there's something moving on the roof, with silence footsteps, something or someone that has the intention to kill, and with the speed that's out of this world, he or she is approaching me without me knowing anything, and before I knew it.

A cold sensation was felt on my neck, with a soft feeling following suit. As I start to know that this kind of feeling on my neck wasn't normal, I started noticing the red stains that fall over from my neck to my shirt, and it ticks onto the ground.

"𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯? 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘥...?", I thought as my breathing getting shorter and shorter every second of it.

With that note, I place my hand on my neck and it feels something trickling down, and with the feeling of my throat burning from the inside out, I pull my hand from it because of the agonizing pain that I felt, and see my right hand, covered with blood.

"I don't understand...how?", I said as I trembled in dread and terror, with my vision getting darker and darker as the second passed by. "How...did this even happen...?"I continued as my knee dropped onto the street into a kneeling position, sitting there, dumbfounded by the situation I was in, and with my eyes flashed with hopelessness visible through my dead eyes.

But before I knew it, I heard faint footsteps in the distance approaching me, but at that point, I didn't have enough strength to care if it's an ally or an enemy. After that, a voice with a distressed tone was heard from the direction of the footsteps.

"Hey, may I ask, is this girl that kneels like a statue, yours?". Asked a voice that sounds like a boy.

"Ahh, Kazuto-san, what are you even doing here? , and of course she's mine, you want her?", Replying to a voice that also sounds like a boy, but with a more sinister undertone.

"You know, killing your fellow students doesn't sound that right, so I advise you to stop here and let me take her, okay?", Said the first boy with an intense yet playful tone.

"Hah! If you want to, you need to fight for her then, Kazuto-san!", with that, a sound of approaching footsteps coming from my left rushing towards the guy named Kazuto.

A rounds of gunshot was fired from the direction where Kazuto is, following a metallic click and clacks and the footsteps that sprinting towards the direction where the sinister guy was, and with that, was heard a sounds of a clashing metals, and a rapid footsteps where I presume the meeting point of those two boys are.

After a while, a noise of a couple people footsteps from afar were rushing here to interfere in the fight, with that knowledge, someone runs here, picks me up and whispered:

"Don't worry, I'll keep you safe, girl".

With that sentence said to me, he proceeds to sprint past the group of people with the sounds of all sorts of weapons fired, from laser guns, a slash from a photon saber to even breaking glass was heard from all directions.

With my eyes, finally getting a little bit clearer to see, the last thing that I saw, was a smile as bright as the sun looking down at me in the midst of chaos, with a shining blue and red light shining through the night skies from the firing laser and photon weapons, with that look of that smile, my heart instantly calms down and falls into a deep sleep.

After that, I don't know what happen afterwards and what become of the enemy that this boy fought, that I finally knew the name which is Kazuto Naoki(Last Name is in the front while the First is in the Back). but after I open my eyes, I was sitting with my back leaning against the wall, with a hot ramen cup ready to serve in front of me, and with all of my wounds mysteriously with not even slight pain was felt in the area of my neck.

𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭

With that flashback out of the way, "Let's hear what you want to tell me, Kazuto-san", I said that to him as I sat neatly and ready to give an ear to everything that came out from Kazuto's mouth.

"Alright, where should we start?", As he muttered to himself.

"Well, let's start with the school system first", With him showing a holographic blank panel that I have never seen before in my life.

"Woaaah! H-How did you do that?"

With my sparkling eyes and curious tone voice, I ask him, but it sadly got dismissed more than a second later.

"I'll explain this to you later, for now let's me tell you everything that's important for you now", With Kazuto saying that with a slightly annoyed voice and a serious face, I apologize and finally move on.

"This school has two systems, a normal school that you saw on the news or the media is called the White Logo, in which the student that goes in the white system can go home to their house outside this school." He said, folding his arms on his chest.

"While the other system is called the Black Logo, which is us, it's the student that lives in the dorm".

Looking for opportunities, I ask him a lot of questions with a puzzled face:

"So, do you mean we can't go to school? Oh yeah, also how'd you know that the student is a part of a white or black system? And also how do yo-"

"One by one please?''Kazuto-san cuts my bombardment of questions with a slightly irritated face.

"Sorry". I apologized with a slightly ashamed face.

"Yeah, moving on, now let me explain the rules of the Black System...".

And after saying that, he proceeds to break into a long explanation that took thirty minutes of the rules that's called the 'Ten Sacred Rules' and the other stuff.

I try to summed it up in my own understanding just because his explanation will take a whole ten minutes just to understand a portion of it.

Essentially, this is the Ten Sacred Rules:

1.You can only graduate if you reach the age of 18 and Survive the School

2.The Students with the most kills can gain 1,000,000 Yen and the second and so on will get the reward of half the first one get, hit or miss.

3.You can only kill a student out of their Grace Period.

4.Even though if you want to kill a student out of their Grace Period, it will only activate one day when the student first opens a gadget.

5.You can kill anyone except everyone mentioned in clause eight.

6.Your choice to kill or not is all handed down to the individual student.

7.Everyone must live in a dorm that the school provided for the students in the Black System.

8.Don't attempt or reveal any malicious intent to the people outside, the white Logos students, act like normal student in front of the other normal students and only kill those in the Black Logo, and Do not show the normal students that you killed, if that happens,the student seeing it will replace you and you're surely and thoroughly executed.

9.Only the school can choose whether you enter the White or the Black Logo, or maybe it's luck based, I don't know.

10.The Only Thing That We Can Pull From This Is,Survival of the Fittest,And Your Freedom to Have Fun! Good luck!

"Well that's pretty much everything about the rules", Said Kazuto-san while I was still processing everything in my mind and sorting the needed and unneeded information.

"Now let's go to th-", Kazuto-san said before getting cut by me.

"Kazuto-san, can you slow down please?", I said while I was facing somewhere else, and still daydreaming about the information that I just received.

"I see...Maybe I was too quick, it's already impressive that you can receive that truckload of information", He said while simultaneously praising me.

***

After a couple of minutes, my mind finally move on after sorting through the information from the Rules and which I said:

"Kazuto-san, thank you for waiting for me, carry on please". But before I can even receive any new additional information, the thing that he said to me, well, let's just say a little unexpected.

"It's already night huh, looks like I need to go. Girl, may I ask what's your name?", Asked him.

"H-Huh? Oh, it's Izu, Kiyoko Izu".

"Well, all you need to know is that there's something called a gadget, it has five types of rarity from common, uncommon, rare, epic, and legendary.

The difficulty to get is from former to latter and also you can find the store on the entrance to enter the dorm from the school, alright, that's all I could tell you now, maybe see you soon, Kiyoko-san".

With that, Kazuto-san drops down from the building, clinging with his makeshift like gun and dagger, and slides down until he reaches the ground, leaving me here alone and perplexed while the breeze of the night wind breeze passes my clothes and gives me a cold chill.

"𝘋𝘰 𝘐 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦...𝘓𝘦𝘵'𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘵𝘦𝘳".

With that mode of thinking, I open the door and come down to the second, then first floor, afterwards I open the ground floor and finally walk on the streets again, still clueless of what I should do.

"𝘐𝘧 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳, 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘒𝘢𝘻𝘶𝘵𝘰-𝘴𝘢𝘯 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘢𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘳𝘮?", With this piece of mind, I try to retrace my path back to when I met with Akio-san (AKA Raika), until I spotted something that's quite familiar to me.

"𝘜𝘳𝘨𝘩...𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘐 𝘴𝘢𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘭𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵, 𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨", With a still disgusted but faint joy just because I found where the street is, I started running towards the direction that I just came in towards the entrance of the dorm.

Paying no attention to my surroundings just because I fear there's something that will scares me in the middle of the night.

***

After what I think like ages, I finally see the store that Kazuto-san mention, I walk silently with me getting closer and closer to the store, with no one seems to be guarding the sto-

"Good evening, Human!", An AI shaped like a robot jumps out of nowhere.

"W-WAAH!", And apparently it's quite effective in giving an everlasting trauma of getting jumpscared by an AI, but after a couple of seconds, I slowly realized, "Oh...A robot AI...you scared me you know".

"My name is AI-31, nice to meet you, what do you want me to do for you tonight?", the AI asked.

"Ahh, do you have something that's called gadget-"

"Wait a sec, I'm going to change my voice to a more feminine voice just to make you comfortable, alright...There you go, continue please?".

"𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 AI 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘮𝘦𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘧𝘢𝘳..." I think as I continue: "Umm, yeah, do you have stuff that's called 'gadget' perhaps?".

"Oh, you're a new student? I see I see, should I explain a thing or two about gadget for a bit?", Asked the AI, with a little curious kind of voice.

"I already know about the gadget rarity, maybe you can tell me about something else?", I reply to the AI's question.

"Every gadget will be tune in on your personality, and all of them can be different in shapes and sizes", saying that with the lights seemingly coming out nowhere and now scanning my face, it continues:

"But if you want to ask me personally, I think they are more like just spinning the wheel like a slot machine and hope for the best". With this sentence closed, the AI stops scanning my face and gives me a gadget, a ID Card...And a key card to a house.

"Looks like I don't have the data for you, considering you're a new student, so here is a house key and the gadget, is there anything else that I can do for you?", Asked the AI again.

"N-No thanks, Thank you, I guess", with me still being weirded by the AI giving me a key card, did everyone in this school get a private house or somethi-

"Fun fact, if you want to buy stuff, you can either buy it with the other AI or just buy it through the chat that you can try opening in your house after you find it, Tada".

With that, the AI disappeared behind the black curtain of the shop and leaving me, walking alone in the dead cold of night, shivering while my mind still processed things like: "𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭...𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥?".

***

After more than several minutes, I finally found my house, with a name plate visible on it that says Izu Kiyoko on it. "𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴...𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦".

I let out a big sigh, and with the security system finally scan through my card, the door finally opened, to a somewhat beautiful house and comfy house, with kitchen, bathroom and a bedroom with a ladder to the second floor to a something like a reading room on top of it.

"Woahh...It's quite luxurious compare to regular house in my neighbourhood", I said to myself while I look satisfied of the house that were gifted to me and let me live in.

"Now then, let's see the tiny box that's filled with something called a gadget that's residing inside is..."

But before I can even open the tiny box that looks like a jewelry box that AI-31 gave to me, my face turned frown just because of the text that's written above.

"Just be careful, anyone can sneak into your house and kill you after a day within the grace period", with me reading it out loud.

"You little piece of sh-".