No Heart, No Emotion
"But how can we win?"
"Do they even understand our language in the first place?"
Minami added her question after me.
"We should have won in a genre we are good at, right?"
Kazuhiro recalled Anzai's words.
"Then I guess I'm going with bust, waist, and hip measurements of the girls in my class."
"Haha, you're still an idiot. We should choose the color of a girls' underwear."
I guess this is just their personalities that Shōta and Keisuke don’t get confused in such a situation. I feel proud of them... yes, for sure.
While I was thinking like that, Risa had already found her clone and was talking to it.
"How about a showdown to see if we can read the kanji learned by the third grade?"
The clone's lifeless eyes glowed as if it recognized the opponent in front of it.
The clone answered Risa’s suggestion.
"I understood. Then, let's take turns with the questions. Who would you like to start with?"
"You ask me first."
"Then…"
The clone took a piece of paper and a pen from somewhere and wrote something.
"Research (研究)."
Risa mumbled quietly as she received the paper.
"Weekend (週末)."
This time, the clone got the paper from Risa and spoke the words.
"Dictionary (辞典)."
"Ice fish (白魚)."
"Incident (事件)."
"Homework (宿題)."
Risa and the clone simply continued the act of receiving the paper, opening their mouths, making sounds, and handing the paper back to the opponent, as if it were a Chinese whisper.
"You seem to be learning a lot for a robot. Well then…"
"East cloud (東雲)."
"Too bad. That is dawn."
"Wha…"
When the clone closed its mouth for the last time with that one word, we heard a loud sound like something bursting, and then saw smoke coming out of its head.
"It seems like I won."
Risa turned her back to the clone and walked toward us.
"It seems that if they lose, they will explode too."
Everyone was so stunned by Risa that they did not open their mouths for a while, but finally, Keisuke, fool number two, gave a bitter smile.
"But, you know that was easy, right?"
"Well, it sure is easy. Unless people are not stupid like you."
"What? I can do the same thing too. Up to around grade six."
"No. I'm asking if you really have the same imagination level as a human being."
"What do you mean?"
"I’m sure you’d be dead if you were like this. Listen, that clone or whatever certainly had perfect knowledge on this topic. Perhaps it is the same with other topics. But those guys crumble easily with a few twists. The key is whether we have the strength to think of that twist."
"In other words, Risa chose kanji that are learned in the third grade, but not the pronunciation of that word in the third grade."
Kazuhiro summed up what Risa had done.
"Learn, pronunciation, kanji?"
At this moment, I finally got it.
"You guys are really stupid. You're no better than clones."
"Don’t say that, Risa."
Minami, with a smile, placed her hand on Risa's shoulder from behind and stepped forward.
"So the word Risa said earlier, dawn (東雲). We learn each kanji by the third grade, 'east (東)' and 'cloud (雲)', but the combination of these kanji, which means "dawn," is not learned in the lower grades of elementary school. That means the clone can't read because he only has third-grade-level knowledge."
"Then we could use a four-letter word, too, right?"
"Yeah."
Risa looked out the window as if uninterested in my comment.
"Oh, I get it."
Keisuke and Shōta looked at each other, nodded, and at the same time turned their attention to the clone standing behind them.
I had a bad feeling.
"Then I guess I still go with the girls' BWH measurements."
"Then I'll guess what the girls are thinking right now."
"Wait a minute!"
I stopped them by chance. No, they were my friends, so I thought "by chance" might not be right, but I grabbed them by the shoulders.
"What?"
"You want to join us? Then don’t copy mine."
"No. You guys are wrong."
"What's wrong?"
"Wrong what?"
"Were you listening to what Risa said? Neither of your topics has any conclusive evidence. What do you do if you get it wrong?"
"He is right. You guys have to think about it very carefully."
Minami joined our conversation.
"Well, if you really know our body measurements and what we're thinking right now, that's fine."
Risa gave a disgusted look.
"Oh, sure. Risa’s bust is fifty…"
"Don’t say it!"
Risa hit her fist as hard as she could at Shōta.
"Huh? What are you guys doing?"
When I looked behind, I saw Kazuhiro standing there, holding a cloned finger in his right hand.
"That’s disgusting. What are you doing, Kazuhiro?"
Keisuke asked while covering his mouth.
"What do you mean by that? I won, so I'm going to eat the finger."
"What? Are you already done?"
Minami said fearfully as she hid behind me.
"Yeah, because I won the hiragana battle."
"Hiragana?"
"What are you saying? Even I could say all the hiraganas."
Shōta said proudly.
"Then, how do you pronounce this?"
With his open left hand, Kazuhiro showed the note to Shōta.
"Huh? What is this? I haven’t seen this kind of hiragana before."
"Hey, Risa. Teach them."
Kazuhiro sighed and handed the paper to Risa.
"No way. Besides, I have to take the finger from my clone too."
"Hey. I’ve seen this character."
Minami, who was looking at the piece of paper, spoke.
"That is pronounced as 'we (ゑ)'."
"We?"
"Yes, my father taught me that the old Japanese has this 'we (ゑ)' and 'wi (ゐ)'."
"Heh."
The two men, seemingly satisfied, pounded their left hands with the fists they made with their right hands.
"Yes, that 'we' is a word that only exists in the old hiragana. Maybe when the clone narrowed down its database to just hiragana, it automatically rejected the old hiragana. Once rejected, the data will not be returned until the game is over. It's very robotic since it lacks flexibility and can only do what it's been programmed to do."
”I cannot understand what you are talking about."
"Truly. I thought Kazuhiro was Japanese, but I guess not."
Even I got disgusted by their talk.
